Today's Maze
The Maze: Commerce media is still growing in the United States, but the free-money phase is ending. McKinsey's 2026 survey says 56% of US media buyers plan to increase commerce media network spend over the next year. The catch: the bigger increase bucket shrank, budgets are being pulled from other channels, and advertisers are spreading spend across more networks. Retail media is becoming infrastructure. Infrastructure has fewer excuses.
Growth is real, but less frothy. The share planning to increase spend ticked up from 55% to 56%, while "increase significantly" fell from 11% in 2024 to 6% in 2025.
The next dollar has an owner. McKinsey says 22% of advertisers plan to shift budget from digital video, CTV, and OTT into commerce media networks; 20% from digital display; 18% from social; and 15% from search.
Fragmentation is now the operating problem. Advertisers use a median of about six networks, up from four, and one-third now use nine or more. That makes measurement, attribution, and workflow discipline the strategy.
Why it matters: The retail media pitch used to be simple: closed-loop data, shopper intent, high-margin inventory. The next pitch is harder. Brands want reach, in-store plus online activation, incrementality, and AI that improves work without turning reporting into theatre. Networks that can prove outcomes become operating systems. Networks that cannot become another tab in the media plan.
Right arrow
Maze step 1
📈 Growth remains, but urgency cooled
Commerce media spend intent
The first signal is not that commerce media is slowing. It is that buyers are becoming more selective. McKinsey still finds a majority of US media buyers planning to increase commerce media network spending. But the strong-growth cohort got smaller. That matters because the category is moving from land-grab math to budget-review math.
The increase pool barely moved. Total planned increases rose from 55% in 2024 to 56% in 2025.
The strong-increase pool fell. "Increase significantly" dropped from 11% to 6%, while "increase slightly" rose from 44% to 50%.
The hold-or-cut pool did not disappear. No-change responses stayed near 30%, and slight decreases rose from 11% to 13%.
That is what maturing channels look like. Spend still moves in. The buyer just brings a spreadsheet.
Maze step 2
💸 Reallocation makes CMNs fight harder
Commerce media budget reallocation
Commerce media growth is increasingly a fight inside the media plan. McKinsey says the largest cited reallocation source is digital video, CTV, and OTT at 22%, followed by digital display at 20%, social at 18%, and search at 15%. That changes the sales motion. A network is no longer only asking for experimental dollars. It is asking to take money from channels with dashboards, agencies, benchmarks, and internal defenders.
CTV and video are the first pressure point. That suggests buyers are testing commerce media against awareness and consideration budgets, not just lower-funnel search.
Display and social are also exposed. Commerce media is becoming a measurable alternative to broad digital reach.
Search is not immune. If commerce media can sit close to purchase intent and prove incrementality, it competes with the oldest performance reflex in the room.
The important shift is political. Once spend comes from another channel, commerce media has to defend not only ROAS, but the role it plays in the whole plan.
Maze step 3
🧺 Portfolio buying creates execution tax
Commerce media network fragmentation
The market is also fragmenting. Advertisers now work with a median of about six commerce media networks, up from four a year earlier. Two-thirds use five or more. One-third use nine or more. And 44% shifted spend among networks in the past year. That is good for buyer leverage. It is brutal for operating discipline.
More networks create more optionality. Buyers can move money across retail, marketplace, travel, finance, delivery, and other commerce-data owners.
More networks also create more translation work. Every extra platform adds campaign setup, reporting differences, attribution debates, creative specs, and reconciliation.
Spend mobility raises the standard. Networks cannot rely on being first-party-data owners forever. They have to prove why their audience is unique and why their measurement is credible.
This is where "retail media" becomes too small a phrase. The category is becoming a portfolio of commerce-data partnerships. Portfolios need governance.
Maze step 4
🧾 Measurement is the real battleground
Commerce media measurement and AI requirements
McKinsey's most important finding is not the spending number. It is the trust gap. Half of advertisers say better measurement would unlock incremental investment. Forty-five percent rate targeting, measurement, and attribution as very important next-generation capabilities. Yet only 3% say commerce media networks measure audience incrementality very accurately.
Measurement is now a growth lever. Better proof does not just satisfy finance. It releases more budget.
In-store integration raises the bar. Forty-seven percent of advertisers now use in-store advertising as part of their CMN strategy, but nearly eight in ten find integrating in-store results at least moderately difficult.
AI increases the need for trust. About one-third plan to use AI daily across scoping, creative, and measurement. More automation without better attribution is just faster confusion.
The winner is not the network with the loudest ad product roadmap. It is the one that can connect audience, activation, incrementality, and reporting without making the buyer run a weekly archaeology project.
Left arrow
Start again
🏗️ Full-stack becomes the new pitch
McKinsey's prescription is blunt: commerce media networks need to become full-stack partners. That means unique audience reach, omnichannel activation, full-funnel measurement, and AI tooling. It also means making explicit choices about where to win, simplifying buying operations, and proving value through industrialized measurement.
That is a bigger job than adding more inventory. Inventory is the easy part. The hard part is building the operating layer that lets advertisers plan once, activate across the shopper journey, compare results across networks, and trust the incrementality read. This is why Don Brett's framing lands: retail media is becoming a cross-functional system connecting marketing, sales, and commerce.
The implication for retailers and marketplaces is uncomfortable. The margin pool is attractive, but the capability bar is rising. A sponsored-search business can be built inside a retail team. A full-stack commerce media business needs product, data, analytics, sales, legal, store operations, and finance moving in the same direction. Less ad network. More operating system.
Sources: McKinsey | LinkedIn post
