Retail is fastest-growing digital media channel globally, Group M report reveals

Retail media is the fastest growing media channel globally, according to Group M’s This Year Next Year report.

Group M defined retail media as “any advertising revenue for retailers” and found it is expected to grow by 17.5% in 2024 globally.

This would represent 15.1% (£117.5bn) of total global ad revenue, which is set to total £778bn this year.

The prediction follows Warc’s latest Future of Digital Commerce report, which showed retail media ad revenue would hit the $150bn (£117.8bn) mark in 2024.

Ten years ago, retail media represented just 1.5% of total global ad revenue but, by 2029, it is expected to account for 17.4% (£179.4bn).

The depreciation of third-party cookies and e-commerce growth has driven the success of retail media, according to the report, although the data also depicts an expected slowdown in e-commerce sales. 

Speaking on a press call, Kate Scott-Dawkins, global head of business intelligence at Group M, spoke of the AI-enabled tools that will support retail media's revenue.

Scott-Dawkins said: "Search we're assuming is 100% AI-enabled where machine learning and natural language processing [is being used] to assess a query that comes in and to match that with search results, including advertising search ads."

She highlighted that the report predicted 69.5% of ad revenue would be informed by AI in 2024, and that this percentage is set to reach 94.1% by 2029.

When it came to retail media, she added: "Retail search is much higher off-site and is using things like programmatic buying tools. That's 100% [AI]."