Retail Media Networks

What a difference a year makes: In Q3 2024, Amazon saw its third straight quarter of decelerating ad sales growth and used its 2024 UnBoxed conference to announce small-scale changes to its various ad platforms.

Fast forward to 2025, and Amazon’s outlook was quite different. The company’s ad business has seen several quarters of revenue acceleration, hitting 24% year-over-year growth in Q3 2025 as Amazon’s quarterly revenue in the area approaches $18 billion. And at 2025’s UnBoxed conference in Nashville, Amazon unveiled a suite of tools and capabilities that — if they work as promised — could change how marketers and agencies do business.

Central to Amazon’s bid to advertisers are two new capabilities with names that speak to the simplicity and centrality it hopes to provide. The company introduced full-funnel campaigns and revamped its Campaign Manager, uniting sponsored ads and its demand-side platform in a single, artificial intelligence-powered ad hub. Amazon also continues to step up its streaming TV play, demonstrating how its connected TV prowess has driven advertiser outcomes.

“We're doing more than just building tools,” said Kelly MacLean, vice president of engineering, science and product for Amazon Ads. “We're building a one-stop shop, empowering you to make smarter decisions to drive better results across the entire advertising journey.” 

Old problems, new tools

The new full-funnel campaigns offering, launching in 2026, is an agentic AI tool that helps advertisers automate campaigns across sponsored ads, display ads and streaming TV. The tool draws from Amazon’s wealth of first-party signals and an Authenticated Graph that it claims reaches 90% of all U.S. households.

“Full-funnel campaigns are the simplest way to grow brand awareness, attract new customers and drive conversions. It's early, but we're super excited about what's possible when you combine Amazon Ads’ unmatched supply and signals with the capabilities of AI,” said Paul Kotas, senior vice president of Amazon Ads.

Powering full-funnel campaigns is Ads Agent, an AI agent that helps advertisers plan, launch and optimize campaigns by automating time-consuming tasks, including campaign targeting, media planning and data analysis. AI is also at the heart of Creative Agent, a previously announced creative tool that can now create streaming TV ads, and the revamped Campaign Manager, an offering that accelerates a shift in digital advertising.

“Platforms are automating the low-value, executional work of campaign setup, bidding and optimization, which means agencies can no longer differentiate on operational efficiency alone. The winners will be the firms that move up-funnel — into strategy, creative intelligence, cross-channel orchestration and real measurement,” said Ted Iobst, president of performance marketing agency Stellar, in emailed comments.

While Amazon is using AI to try to make campaign creative and deployment easier and more efficient, it is also using the technology to drive outcomes — an increasingly crucial development for marketers facing smaller budgets and burnt-out consumers. To do so, Amazon has worked to improve its Brand+ and Performance+ tools with enhanced AI models and new consideration tactics.

Looking to reach customers across fragmented touchpoints during the tax season, H&R Block combined its data with Amazon’s, creating seed audiences for retargeting and optimization. The use of Brand+ and Performance+ helped bring new customers into the funnel while motivating those close to conversion to make a purchase. The result was a 144% lift in full-funnel conversion rate and a 35% improvement in cost per acquisition, MacLean said. 

It’s not TV, it’s Amazon

Amazon’s accelerated growth as an advertising powerhouse has mirrored the development of Prime Video as an ad-supported streaming video platform that can better compete with legacy publishers and fellow tech giants like Netflix. At the 2025 UnBoxed conference, Amazon announced that Prime Video now has an average monthly ad-supported reach of more than 315 million viewers globally — up from 200 million in April 2024.

Along with boosting Prime Video, Amazon has spent several months integrating other publishers into its platform and claims to be the only place that advertisers can access all premium streaming TV and audio under one roof. At UnBoxed, the company announced a way for advertisers to unlock this scale, allowing them to negotiate both standard streaming TV deals and those with premium streaming publishers in its Inventory Hub. Complete TV, a previously announced tool that helps advertisers plan, manage and optimize their streaming TV investments, is now also available to all advertisers. 

“Thanks to our signals, powered by AI, you can easily manage and meet all your upfront commitments across every publisher. You can incorporate your linear TV data to see the full picture across linear and streaming TV reach for a complete view of audience overlap,” MacLean said. “You won’t find this combination of intelligence, flexibility and privacy anywhere else in the industry.”

Amazon’s play in streaming TV comes as the channel now represents more than 44% of overall TV viewing time in the U.S., surpassing broadcast and cable combined, per Nielsen data. At the same time, streaming TV is increasingly sold programmatically, with 30% of non-YouTube streaming sold that way and 80% of programmatic activated using biddable deals, according to data cited by Lauren Bernard, a principal technical product manager for Amazon Ads, during a panel discussion at UnBoxed.

“The shift to programmatic is laying the groundwork for a world where advertisers have more flexibility, optimization levers and control, forecasting a future where streaming TV is used to drive actual business outcomes,” Bernard said, while admitting that framing streaming TV as a performance channel was “a bit generous.” 

“There's a reason that 30% and not 100% of streaming TV ads are sold programmatically today. Operating in the new world, it's tough, and our work is not yet done to resolve advertisers pain points,” she added.

Driving outcomes

Streaming TV still has issues around fragmentation, inefficiency and complexity. Amazon has worked to address fragmentation through its publisher deals in its DSP, with campaigns leveraging Amazon’s holistic streaming TV solutions seeing 1.4 times higher incremental reach, 45% higher detail page view rates and 26% better purchase rates. Moves like its deal with Roku have helped address inefficiency, with authenticated reach driving 42% higher unique reach at the same budget, 26% less frequency per user and a three-times return on ad spend, per early testing.

To address the complexity of streaming TV, Amazon has built tools to help TV buyers plan, manage and measure their investments, through solutions like Complete TV and full-funnel measurement that brings together Amazon Marketing Cloud insights with those from third-party vendors including Nielsen, VideoAmp, Samba TV, Circana and others. 

A Lay’s case study presented at UnBoxed by Bernard demonstrates how Amazon’s streaming TV can drive outcomes. By consolidating Prime Video with streaming TV apps across the open internet in Amazon DSP, leveraging Amazon Marketing Cloud and frequency management capabilities, the campaign was able to deliver 133% higher purchase rates, 79% higher incremental reach and a 9% lift and brand awareness. It also saved 3% of the media budget through reduced platform fees. 

In another example, appliance company SharkNinja teamed with Amazon to help drive a “big bet” around its Ninja Crispi air fryer, explained Dave Kersey, the company’s global head of media. SharkNinja applied authenticated reach through Amazon DSP, driving a 30% reduction in cost per weekly household reach and a 12% reduction in CPM.

“We needed to have precision in the marketplace, and we needed to make sure that all of our dollars are being spent as effectively as possible,” Kersey said during a panel discussion. “[The results] prove that our model of looking at the right layers of signals, as well as working within the right DSPs and the right partners, can give us that efficiency, but also that incredible business impact, as well.”

As retailers look to level up the sophistication of their media networks, some are turning to a new partner: their biggest disruptor. Amazon in January 2025 launched a Retail Ad Service that allows outside retailers to tap into the e-commerce giant’s ad tech to run and manage campaigns while helping advertisers to discover new media networks via Amazon Ads. It’s a concept that has raised some eyebrows but is starting to attract players that are trying to boost discovery and stand out in a category that has grown hypercompetitive for ad dollars. 

“The immediate impact is a commercial one,” said Michael Krans, vice president of Macy’s Media Network, during a panel at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show in January 2026. “What this helps us do is move beyond just [being] a retailer that’s serving ads. This positions us as a tech-enabled media solution to the community.”

Macy’s Media Network, which debuted in 2020 and encompasses the Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury brands, signed on for a pilot with Amazon’s RAS in August 2025, right ahead of the key holiday period. At the time, Macy’s was described as the first major retailer to join RAS, which also works with smaller and mid-sized names, including Tillys.

Macy’s Media Network has since drawn over 175 new brands to its sponsored products offering, according to Krans. Perhaps more importantly, RAS has improved credibility and confidence for advertising with the network due to Amazon’s sterling ad-tech reputation. In Macy’s case, a “vast majority” of its potential advertiser base was already in the Amazon ecosystem, creating a greater sense of consistency. 

“I wanted to essentially remove friction from the ad-buying process,” said Krans. “I wanted to give another option, another way for advertisers to easily execute media campaigns, specifically sponsored products, on Macys.com.”

A degree of wariness toward teaming with Amazon is understandable for traditional retailers. RAS, which is built on Amazon Web Services technology, has controls to keep users’ data separate from Amazon Ads, the company has said.

At the same time, retailers are facing a retail media landscape that is maturing and now populated by over 200 networks, per industry estimates. Advertisers have indicated they want to be more selective with their retail media spending and desire partners that can deliver well-rounded services with meaningful reach. The initial retail media gold rush is over and the specter of consolidation has loomed large for some time now, a factor that could push more networks toward partnerships and cooperatives.      

“My advice to the retailers there that are building these [networks] is: It’s not ‘Field of Dreams.’ If you build it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the advertiser dollars will pour in,” said Mike Feldman, senior vice president of commerce at the Omnicom agency Flywheel, on the panel, which was moderated by an Amazon representative.

Grappling with ‘coopetition’

Rivals working together on functions ancillary to their main lines of business isn’t unheard of. Large chunks of the technology sector run on AWS. Retail media teams seeking out partnerships in the mode of Amazon RAS ultimately need to sell company leadership on embracing “coopetition,” per Krans, emphasizing that the potential business opportunity outweighs the perceived risks.

“I had to work with leaders at Macy’s to gain buy-in on this,” said Krans of the RAS partnership. “We talked about, openly, this idea of coopetition: How two retailers can actually collaborate in one space — in digital media advertising — and then also compete in another space. Two things can be true.” 

Krans also tried to dispel the notion that RAS works on a “set it and forget it” model, with retailers effectively handing off the keys to Amazon to do the heavy lifting. Retail media networks still need to closely examine the needs and audiences of their advertisers to get the best returns, the executive explained.

“You can't mistake the operational ease for strategic sameness,” added Krans. “The brands and agencies may be very familiar with this platform, but you have to look at your own customer.”

At least in Macy’s Media Network’s case, the RAS relationship isn’t an exclusive one. Macy’s Media Network still works with multiple sponsored product ad servers in addition to RAS. Krans encouraged wider adoption of the service, positioning it as an option that could lift all boats.

“I’m very hopeful that Retail Ad Service will bring on more and more retailers,” said Krans. “That’s only good news for Macy’s. It brings more attention to the platform.” 

Sponsored content

By Fetch

Retail media has quickly become one of the most important growth channels for brands. With first-party data, proximity to purchase and closed-loop reporting, retail media networks (RMNs) promise something marketers have long wanted: precise targeting and measurable sales impact.

But as investment grows, so does scrutiny. Marketers are being asked a tougher question: are retail media dollars driving incremental growth—or simply capturing demand that already exists?

Closed-loop attribution shows who converted. It does not always show whether advertising caused the conversion.

A recent customer match and shopper analysis conducted between a major national grocery retailer and Fetch offers a window into this challenge. The retailer examined the difference between shoppers matched to Fetch and those who were not.

The gap was significant.

Reinforcing, not replacing, loyalty

Households connected to Fetch averaged $1,700 in annual sales, compared to roughly $900 among non-Fetch households—nearly double the value within the same retailer. These households were also 67% more likely to be digitally engaged and more likely to participate in the retailer’s loyalty program. They were also 2x more likely to shop across channels (16% vs. 8%).

In other words, the highest-value shoppers weren’t confined to a single ecosystem. They were digitally active, loyalty-oriented and omnichannel by behavior.

That reality challenges a long-standing assumption in retail media: that platforms outside the retailer environment compete with RMNs for influence. Increasingly, the opposite appears true.

Retail media excels at capturing intent close to the moment of purchase. First-party loyalty data, proximity to transaction and closed-loop attribution make it highly effective at driving conversion within owned environments.

But as retail media investment scales, the strategic question shifts from can we activate demand to can we prove we created it.

High-frequency, high-value buyers are often the easiest audiences to convert. They’re loyal, digitally engaged and already shopping across channels. But they’re also the most likely to purchase regardless of media exposure. Without rigorous controls, optimizing toward them risks confusing efficiency with incrementality.

That’s where outcomes-based validation becomes essential.

Partnerships between retailers and platforms like Fetch are increasingly filling that role. Activation and validation together create a more durable measurement architecture:

• Retail media networks capture in-environment intent and drive conversion.
• Outcome-based ad platforms introduce controlled incrementality testing and verified cross-channel measurement.

Together, they allow marketers to evaluate performance based on net-new revenue impact—not just attributed volume.

Retail media’s next chapter will not be defined by better attribution dashboards. It will be defined by ecosystems that can validate incremental impact across environments and channels.

Because in today’s performance economy, reporting conversions is table stakes.

Proving you created them is the real advantage.

Retail media is forecast to grow about 20% in 2025, according to eMarketer, as advertisers increasingly rely on the channel to tap into retailers’ store of first-party data and reach consumers closer to the point of sale. Walmart Connect continues to grow at a higher rate than the retail media market at large, notching 33% growth in the U.S. in Q3 of its fiscal year 2026, outpacing the retailer’s overall sales growth by six-times and representing, along with membership fees, about a third of its operating income.

“Advertising has been one of the areas of our business that has changed the most, or better said, the impact or influence from that has changed our P&L the most,” said John David Rainey, Walmart’s executive vice president and CFO, at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference in December 2025. “As we've gained share, advertisers, they want to follow the eyeballs. And so we've done really well in advertising.”

Walmart reaches 150 million customers a week between its website, app and stores, and can now reach 95% of the U.S. with same-day delivery — a competitive differentiator during holiday shopping and beyond. Meanwhile, its 4,600 stores unlock not just traditional consumer spending but an opportunity for on-site retail media. That scale, plus investment in measurement solutions and newfound connected TV prowess, is turning Walmart Connect into an advertising powerhouse.

“Walmart Connect has expanded from performance-based media to full-funnel solutions, focusing on new experiences across all customer touch points,” wrote Seth Dallaire, executive vice president and chief growth officer at Walmart U.S., in a LinkedIn post. “We've made significant strides in aligning and optimizing our advertising technology platforms, streamlining efficiency and expanding top-of-funnel opportunities for advertisers.”

Integrating Vizio

Now a year on from completing a deal for smart TV maker Vizio in December 2024, Walmart is seeing returns on its investment: the company’s global ad business including Vizio surpassed 50% growth in Q3 of its fiscal year 2026. The CTV opportunity has helped Walmart attract non-endemic advertisers across automotive, financial services and QSR industries — some of which have become the largest advertisers on the Walmart DSP.

“CTV as a whole is the fastest growing part of Walmart Connect, and Vizio is helping to fuel that,” said Ryan Mayward, senior vice president of sales at Walmart Connect, in an interview with Marketing Dive.

The Vizio integration began with giving advertisers the ability to address ads to Walmart customers based on shopping history and then measure the sales impact of showing ads on Vizio screens, including both its free, ad-supported streaming service and other ad-supported apps through its operating system.

Recently, Walmart opened advertising on the Vizio home screen, using Walmart audience data for targeting and measurement. The company is also offering a bundle that combines the Vizio home screen and Walmart’s app home screen, and will be looking to do more concurrent advertising across surfaces in the future. Next up, Walmart is rolling out Vizio’s operating system on the retailer’s private label Onn TVs, potentially expanding the Vizio OS footprint to 25% to 30% of U.S. households.

“One of the reasons we're so excited about Vizio is when customers see CTV ads, they are 28% more likely to buy products from from Walmart,” Mayward said. “The more customer touch points that a brand leverages, the more they will sell.”

Measurement across surfaces

Walmart has been investing heavily in bringing closed-loop measurement to all of its ad products, including search, display, video and in-app ads but also off-site products, social media and CTV ad purchased through the Walmart DSP. The retailer for the last year has offered an incremental return on ad spend metric for search, adding another dimension of incrementality beyond display and video.

“We're reporting on the volume of incremental sales and the efficiency of incremental sales, and the results have been great,” Mayward said. “When we talk about retail media trends, iROAS is what everybody wants for every retail media ad product, and that's where we're headed. Signals have been important, and then our solutions are getting more robust.”

The retailer now offers closed-loop measurement with TikTok, TV networks and Meta, the latter building on a previous relationship with the social giant to now measure ROAS. The company offers measurement several ways: some through its Walmart DSP, while other offerings are bespoke integrations, like one with Disney that rolled out in 2024. 

“The thing that brands expect from us is consistent metrics across every advertising surface, whether in a Walmart store or outside of a Walmart store, and that's really what we're delivering to them,” Mayward said.

Walmart also continues to develop its capabilities around in-store retail media, a long-discussed extension of the channel that has failed to take off in the U.S. Along with investing in the hardware and ad tech needed to activate in-store advertising, Walmart is working to introduce contextually relevant, customer-first ads and better measure brand lift and sales lift of ads across in-store screens.

“You're not going to see ads for power cords and screwdrivers on the bakery screen. We're going to show ads that are relevant to a food shopping experience,” Mayward said.

The AI playbook

While in-store might represent the next frontier in retail media, artificial intelligence continues to reshape the entire advertising landscape. Walmart Connect is expected to make announcements related to AI at the annual CES trade show in January 2026, but has already applied AI to several parts of its ad-tech stack. 

AI is integrated into its creative builder, where it can create image and video content quickly, cheaply and with high quality. The tech also powers a programmatic solution that has democratized advertiser access to display inventory in its app, and has improved bidding and optimization in the search experience. Similarly, AI technology is helping brands build their own shops in the Walmart app in just minutes. 

Outside of advertising, Walmart is experimenting with AI through Sparky, its customer-facing generative AI assistant, and via a partnership with OpenAI that will bring shopping to ChatGPT. And while the rise of agentic commerce could change how consumers shop — and how advertisers spend on Walmart Connect — the retailer is embracing experimentation. 

“The playbook for the next phase of of commerce, marketing, advertising, ad tech and content creation — it's going to be written in real time,” Mayward said.

Albertsons’ retail media arm, Albertsons Media Collective, on Jan. 6, 2026, introduced a new in-store incrementality measurement in an effort to solve for one of retail media’s most persistent challenges, per a press release. The grocer’s matched market framework looks to demonstrate the true incremental impact of in-store media, rather than attributing sales for purchases that would have happened regardless of media exposure.

“For too long, in-store media has been measured with tools that confuse correlation for impact,” said Liz Roche, vice president of media and measurement at Albertsons Media Collective, in the press release. “Our matched market incrementality approach cuts through that noise. By isolating causal lift at the store level, we’re showing brands the actual impact of in-store media activation — and giving them confidence that their investment is driving net-new sales.” 

CPG giant Mondelēz used the new framework to measure the impact of a campaign that looked to drive household penetration, category growth and incremental sales for its Sargento Cheese Bakes snack crackers. The integration of in-store screens led to a 14% in-store sales lift, and the campaign saw over 5.5 million impressions and a $2.41 incremental return on ad spend.

“In-store is one of the most influential moments in the path to purchase, but historically it’s been difficult to measure with precision,” said Melissa Pitmon, customer director for omnichannel at Mondelēz, in the press release. “Albertsons Media Collective’s matched market measurement gave us clear, causal insight into how in-store media drove incremental sales, helping us optimize with confidence and validate the true impact of our investment.”

The new solution operates at the store level, comparing sales performance of stores with and without media exposure, utilizing nearly 60 variables in an effort to reduce bias, scale nationally across store formats and work with new and existing in-store screens. Albertsons launched an in-store digital display network in June 2025, and more than 50 advertisers are using the solution. Mondelēz was a launch partner.

In-store retail media is forecast to surpass $1 billion in ad spend by 2029, per eMarketer, which describes the channel as a “sleeping giant” in the larger retail media market. However, challenges around buying, managing and measuring in-store media have persisted and hampered growth. 

The new offering comes as Albertsons Media Collective works to develop other solutions in the retail media space, including ones at the convergence of other growing channels, like connected TV. The retail media arm is working with NBCUniversal to provide closed-loop measurement that bridges connected TV exposure and retail outcomes, an offering that helped Chobani see strong lifts in the return on ad spend across onsite and offsite media.

“We look forward to advancing the measurement capabilities we offer in the future with closed-loop measurement, while remaining compliant with and closely aligning our measurement roadmap with IAB current and future standards for in-store media,” Roche said in the release.

Albertsons Media Collective plans to expand its in-store digital display network in 2026. The in-store fleet is expected to include about 800 more stores, offering scale and continuity across 10 divisions.

Target will be among the first advertisers to pilot contextual ads in OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT program starting in February 2026, according to a company blog post. The retailer will run ads promoting both its own business and those of brand partners on its Roundel retail media network. 

Target said that all of its ChatGPT ads will be clearly labeled, appear separately and distinctly and not influence answers shared by the program. Ads will be tailored to specific keywords in ChatGPT prompts in a bid to ensure relevance and improve personalization. 

OpenAI’s decision to bring ads to ChatGPT has sowed consternation among some users and served as marketing fodder for rivals with a stance against the monetization tactic. Target emphasized in the blog post that its advertising won’t influence the chatbot’s responses in any way, a sticking point for skeptics, and that ads from its brand and Roundel partners will be transparently labeled. 

“We believe ads play an important role in continuing to support broad access to AI,” said Asad Awan, ads and monetization lead at OpenAI, in a statement included in the Target blog post. “By working closely with partners like Target in this pilot, we’re able to thoughtfully test new ad experiences and learn together to ensure ads are separate and clearly distinct, relevant, and useful while maintaining the trust people place in ChatGPT.”

Target integrating Roundel into ChatGPT underscores how retail media networks could be a bridge to larger AI advertising adoption. Retail media networks can work with hundreds or thousands of brands and, in the case of big-box stores, a wide variety of product categories. Roundel has over 2,000 vendors and generates about $2 billion in value annually, per figures previously shared by Target.

In a theoretical use case described by the retailer, a ChatGPT user asking the program for recommendations for countertop cooking appliances focused on convenience may be served an ad for an air fryer brand that advertises through Roundel.

Target said that online traffic driven to its site by ChatGPT is already growing 40% monthly on average, making advertising through the service a natural next step. Separately, it launched a dedicated Target app experience in ChatGPT in November 2025 as part of its bigger bets on AI and agentic commerce. Target in January 2026 also partnered with Google’s Gemini AI on similar shopping capabilities. 

OpenAI’s advertising pilot, which was announced in January 2026, will serve ads to logged-in users of the chatbot’s free tier and on ChatGPT Go, an $8-per-month offering that is currently rolling out in the U.S. Users of ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise will not see ads, and OpenAI has pledged to only share aggregated data with advertisers around campaign performance.    

The controversial decision to bring ads to ChatGPT was the subject of a Super Bowl ad from OpenAI rival Anthropic. In the spot, which was one of the best-received of the game, a man asking his trainer for advice on how to quickly get six-pack abs is greeted with a stilted, AI-sounding response that is capped off by a jarring plug for sneaker insoles.   

Several other brands and agencies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise in ChatGPT as its base surpasses 800 million weekly active users. WPP Media in February 2026 said clients including Adobe, Audible, Ford and Mazda would participate in the ads pilot. 

Albertsons Media Collective and NBCUniversal are working to provide closed-loop measurement that bridges connected TV exposure and retail outcomes, per details shared with Marketing Dive. The partnership between the grocer’s retail media network and the media conglomerate attempts to address persistent advertiser concerns about the lack of measurement across an increasingly fragmented CTV landscape.

“Advertisers have been asking for clearer proof that their CTV investments are driving real results, and together with NBCUniversal, we’re answering that call,” said Evan Hovorka, vice president of product innovation at Albertsons Media Collective, in a statement.

Chobani piloted the closed-loop measurement capability provided by Albertsons and NBCU to promote the launch of its protein yogurt drinks at stores under the Albertsons umbrella. The effort brought together CTV ads with social, offsite and onsite activations and drove results for the yogurt marketer.

Running from March to June 2025, the Chobani campaign generated a 1.9 times lift in new-to-brand social engagement and a $4.22 return on ad spend on premium CTV. In addition, it boosted ROAS onsite by over 69% and offsite by over 43% compared to a previous campaign that didn’t include premium CTV advertising.

“Premium CTV helped us turn awareness into action, and the strong ROAS lifts across onsite and offsite proved just how powerful a connected, full-funnel approach can be,” said Christen Spencer, director of shopper marketing for Chobani, in a statement.

CTV, retail media convergence

The new capability is built on a data collaboration that brings together both parties’ first-party data within a clean room environment, deterministically matching NBCU’s premium CTV ad exposures with Albertsons’ in-store and digital transaction data.

“By securely connecting ad exposure to sales through clean room technology, we’re bringing more accountability and transparency to premium video content — giving brands the confidence they need to invest in CTV as a full-funnel performance channel,” Hovorka said.

Closed-loop measurement between Albertsons and NBCU could help marketers deliver more personalized experiences and lead to deeper audience insights. The partnership builds on a previous deal which opened NBCU’s premium video inventory to users of Albertsons Media Collective’s managed service.

“At NBCUniversal, we’re focused on making our premium content more accessible and actionable for marketers of all sizes,” said Alison Levin, president of advertising and partnerships at NBCU, in a statement. “Through strategic partnerships that simplify how brands work with us — including Albertsons Media Collective — we’re giving them the flexibility and clarity to see TV as a true business-driving platform.”

The Albertsons-NBCU collaboration is another example of a growing convergence between CTV and retail media. Amazon at its 2025 UnBoxed conference demonstrated how streaming TV and its full-funnel offering can drive outcomes, while other agencies, ad-tech companies and trade bodies have worked to iron out the performance aspects of CTV.