Retail Media Networks

For retailers, it is a high-margin advertising business. For brands, it can be a powerful way to influence shoppers close to purchase. But the same platforms selling the inventory often control the data, the attribution, the benchmarks, and the recommendations.

That creates a problem: retail media can look efficient on paper while quietly duplicating spend, over-crediting sales, or shifting budget toward placements that serve the retailer better than the brand.

Criterion Global helps advertisers plan, buy, and evaluate retail media with the discipline of capital allocation. We help brands understand where retail media creates incremental growth, where it merely taxates existing demand, and how to invest across retail networks, marketplaces, shopper platforms, and international commerce ecosystems with greater confidence.

We’ve been building retail media strategies since 2011—starting with early luxury commerce leaders like Net-A-Porter and brands including Belmond and Aether Apparel. Since then, we’ve navigated the rise of Europe's Fastest Growing grocery delivery app, supported major U.S. retailers, and executed global retail media programs for perishable categories like California Table Grapes.

Retail media has transformed the shelf from a physical space into an omnichannel one: in-store, online, in-app, and across marketplaces. For brands, this creates new ways to influence shoppers close to purchase. For retailers, it creates a high-margin media business layered on top of commerce.

That difference in incentives matters.

Retail media networks are often presented as must-buy channels because they sit close to the transaction. But proximity to purchase does not automatically prove incremental value. Without independent planning, advertisers risk overfunding placements that capture demand rather than create it.

Criterion Global has worked in retail media since its early development — from luxury commerce and marketplace environments to grocery, CPG, and international retail programs. Our role is to help brands decide where retail media belongs in the broader paid media mix, how much to invest, and how to judge performance beyond platform-reported return.

Retail media platforms promise closed-loop measurement: the ability to connect ad exposure to retail sales. That is valuable. But it is not the same as independent proof of incrementality.

When every network reports within its own walls, each platform has an incentive to claim credit. The result is often duplicated attribution, inconsistent reporting, and a growing retail media line item that few teams can confidently defend.

This is retail media roulette: brands keep spending because the reported return looks attractive, even when it is unclear which dollars are driving new sales, protecting share, or simply subsidizing purchases that would have happened anyway.

Criterion Global helps clients pressure-test those assumptions through structured media planning, channel comparison, incrementality testing, and disciplined budget governance.

Retail media networks are often “frenemies”: inconsistent data, limited ad formats, and high costs—yet difficult for brands to ignore. As retail media specialists, we help clients break out of these unhealthy dynamics through structured testing that clarifies the real cost and real return of each network.

Much of the value hinges on unique buyer data and the effectiveness of each network’s “shelf-space” ad products. In some cases, independent shopper apps can offer lower-risk access to high-intent audiences—especially for brands entering new markets or taking a cautious approach - see our case study on growing ZEISS sales +14% in Walmart, one of the largest retailers in the US.)

According to BCG, retailers capture 70–90% margins on onsite/in-app retail media, versus 20–40% on offsite tactics. If retailer data is weak—or similar to what your brand already owns—that offsite premium becomes an unnecessary 20–40%(1) markup with no added value.

Retail media is not developing evenly around the world - 40% of all retail media network investment globally is spent in the US. This means the international media buying opportunity outside the US is immense.

Source: eMarketer, 2025

In the U.S., the market is already crowded, expensive, and increasingly dominated by a handful of large networks. In Asia, commerce, content, mobile payments, and marketplace behavior have been intertwined for years. But across Europe, LATAM, the Middle East, and parts of Africa, retail media is still being defined.

That creates opportunity for brands expanding internationally.

In emerging retail media markets, advertisers can often shape category visibility earlier, negotiate more flexible partnerships, and build learnings before costs rise. But they also face fragmented retailer capabilities, inconsistent reporting standards, and uneven platform maturity.

Criterion Global helps brands localize retail media strategy across markets — not by copying a U.S. retail media plan abroad, but by assessing each market’s commerce behavior, retailer concentration, media infrastructure, and growth economics.

Retail media rewards brands that can separate commercial pressure from media value.

Criterion Global helps advertisers evaluate retail media networks in the context of the full media mix: where they strengthen shopper conversion, where they support distribution priorities, and where they simply tax demand the brand has already created elsewhere.

Our work spans network selection, retail media buying, marketplace strategy, shopper audience planning, international market prioritization, partner negotiation, incrementality testing, and cross-platform reporting. The goal is not to chase every retailer with a media offering. It is to identify the networks, formats, markets, and measurement frameworks that can credibly support growth.

As an independent media buying agency, Criterion Global is not tied to any retailer, marketplace, or retail media platform. We help brands compare opportunities across Amazon, Walmart Connect, Instacart, Carrefour, Mercado Libre, Walmex, regional grocery networks, specialty retailers, and emerging commerce platforms — with a clear view of cost, reach, attribution, margin impact, and strategic fit.

Retail media can be a growth channel. It can also become a toll. Criterion Global helps brands know the difference.