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Marketing
10 March
Amazon leads in retail media, with nearly 40% market share
MediaRadar shares the top five brands spending on retail media.

Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash
Retail media has exploded in recent years, as the power of ecommerce marketplaces has presented opportunities for brands to reach consumers by advertising on the same platform where they shop and buy products.
During this expansion, retailers from Michaels to Best Buy to Kroger launched their own retail media networks to create avenues for brands to leverage first-party data that comes from sales and loyalty programs for advertising on marketplaces. Gradually, that data is also being used to advertise across the web, as well.
Now, a new market that crosses advertising and commerce is coming into view. In all, retail media is now worth an estimated $100 billion, according to a new study from advertising intelligence and sales enablement platform MediaRadar.
Top advertisers with Amazon. (Source: MediaRadar)
When it comes to the retail leaders in the space, findings from MediaRadar included the following:
Amazon is the dominant force in retail media, capturing 37% of market share. Over 14,200 companies advertised 17,000-plus brands on the online giant in 2022.
General/mass retailers, including Walmart and Target collectively captured 36% of ad spend in retail media.
That means the largest players in the space accounted for 73% of retail media ad investment in 2022.
Still, the gap between Amazon and the rest of the field is notable. Amazon reported having a $31 billion advertising business in early 2022, and growth only continued from there as it posted growth north of 20% in each quarter of the year.
Just as Amazon has the lead in ecommerce, it also has the lead in retail media. This makes the company not only a powerhouse in commerce, but also one of the largest digital advertising giants.
"Amazon has such a tight grip on the digital space that they really sit in a category of their own," said Todd Krizelman, CEO and cofounder of MediaRadar, in a statement. "Other players are growing quickly, but it will be difficult for legacy brick and mortar retailers to beat Amazon on its own terrain. Retailers should explore other opportunities to extend retail media - such as in-store digital experiences or other channels like email newsletters, where Amazon doesn't have as much traction."
Top advertisers with general retailers (Source: MediaRadar)
When it comes to brand adoption of this channel, MediaRadar shared the following:
In all, nearly 26,000 companies advertised almost 40,000 brands across retail media networks.
Top categories for retail media included consumer electronics (15% of spend), housewares (6%), snacks & desserts (6%), household maintenance products (5%), and furniture/decor (5%). This accounted for 37% of total retail ad spend last year.
The top five brands spending in retail media include HP, Palmolive, Pepperidge Farm, Planters, Ritz, Epson and Starbucks.
For brands, retail media is serving as a viable new advertising channel at a time when privacy-oriented shifts like Apple’s App Tracking Transparency and the coming demise of third-party cookies are making long-used tools for social media-based advertising less efficient than they once were.
"Brands are making a big push into retail media right now," said Krizelman. "This trend will only continue as more advertisers seek lower funnel channels to drive performance for their spend, and as identity-based advertising on the open web continues to decline. Retail media offers a solution to these issues."
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Retail Channels
17 March
Walmart launches online hub for clean beauty
The retailer debuted a Made Without List to identify ingredients that customers may not want to be included in beauty products.
(Photo via Walmart)
A new online shop at Walmart is helping customers find products that leave out the ingredients that don't live up to environmental standards, or their values.
The news: Clean Beauty at Walmart launched this week to help customers find products that are transparent about the ingredients included, and ultimately are made without chemicals that are harmful to the planet.
What’s in the shop? The online shop has more than 900 products, and Walmart said 80% are under $10. In an announcement, Walmart spotlighted products such as e.l.f. Mascara, Kinlo sunscreen, earth Shampoo and Cetaphil face wash.
How it works: To inform product selection for the Clean Beauty platform, Walmart developed a Made Without List to identify the ingredients that customers don’t want, and align with clean beauty standards. It contains over 1,200 ingredients, such as formaldehyde and PFAS. To develop the list, Walmart reviewed state and federal regulations, consulted suppliers and worked with the Environmental Defense Fund.
The clean beauty products are also “reimagining entire products,” Walmart said. This includes exploring sustainable packaging alternatives, evaluating carbon emissions associated with production and adopting cruelty-free and ethical standards.
Key quote from Walmart SVP of Sustainability Jane Ewing: “Our customers want to buy products that reflect their values, and for many customers, that means providing greater transparency into product formulations and products made without certain ingredients.”
Trending: Clean beauty doesn’t only align with values and sustainability; it is also popular. The #cleanbeauty category has over 5.8 million posts on Instagram and 1.3 billion views on TikTok, signaling popularity among Gen Z and millennials. Walmart cited data from Statista that indicated more than 70% of consumers want to buy products that align with their values.
Putting the face on: With the clean beauty shop, Walmart is providing a home for the popular category so it is easy to find on the company’s growing marketplace. The destination could also help attract younger, internet-savvy consumers at a time when the retailer is seeing increased visits from people who are giving Walmart a closer look than usual as they seek to save money amid inflation.
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