Retail media isn’t just growing — it’s becoming the connective tissue of modern commerce. The latest earnings from Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart make that clear. Each platform posted strong advertising results, but what matters most isn’t the revenue figures. It’s the direction of travel.
Collectively, the “Big 3” are shaping what the next decade of retail media will look like — and the picture is one of higher costs, smarter targeting, and a blurred line between advertising and retail itself.
Amazon’s ad business just set another quarterly record: $14.7 billion in Q2, up nearly 20% year over year. Sponsored Products remain the engine, but the real growth is in Sponsored Display, DSP, and video.
The key takeaway? Amazon has moved beyond simple search ads. They’re building a full-funnel advertising ecosystem powered by audience data, AMC insights, and off-Amazon reach.
For brands, this means advertising isn’t optional. It’s the price of shelf space — and the bar for strategic sophistication keeps rising.
Walmart: Scale and Incrementality
Walmart Connect grew 26% in Q2 to $3.4 billion. Not Amazon-scale yet, but impressive momentum — especially considering Walmart’s unique advantages:
Store-level data that ties online ads to offline sales.
Massive grocery traffic that Amazon still struggles to replicate.
A push toward self-serve tools that make Walmart easier for mid-sized brands to adopt.
Walmart is proving that retail media doesn’t just belong to Amazon. Their value proposition lies in incrementality — being able to show ad dollars driving both digital and physical basket growth.
Instacart Ads is smaller in absolute terms ($1.5 billion run rate), but it punches above its weight in certain categories. CPG brands, in particular, see Instacart as a last-mile media channel — ads that convert into carts within hours, not days.
The platform’s strength is immediacy. Unlike Amazon or Walmart, Instacart’s ads sit right on top of weekly grocery behavior. That makes them incredibly powerful for driving trial and repeat purchase — if the targeting keeps improving.
The Future of Retail Media
Taken together, the Big 3 tell us three things about where retail media is headed:
It’s becoming table stakes. Every major retailer with traffic will run a media network. The only question is how mature their targeting and reporting stack will be.
Measurement is the next frontier. Amazon has AMC. Walmart is doubling down on incrementality. Instacart leans into immediacy. Whoever cracks cross-channel attribution and proves ROI at scale will win disproportionate ad budgets.
The costs will keep rising. As more ad inventory rolls out, competition for visibility gets fiercer. For brands, retail media spend is no longer “performance marketing.” It’s a structural cost of doing business.
Final Take
Retail media is no longer an experiment. It’s the new rent. Amazon sets the pace, Walmart shows the power of omnichannel data, and Instacart proves niche players can thrive with the right focus.
For brands, the question is no longer whether to invest — it’s how to invest smarter. The winners will be those who stop treating retail media as a campaign channel and start treating it as an operating system.
Konstantin Cherednychenko is an eCommerce and digital marketing expert with 10+ years of experience driving growth for global brands on Amazon and beyond. He’s led campaigns for brands that generated over $400M in revenue, blending data, creativity, and a deep obsession with the digital shelf. Passionate about full-funnel strategy, performance advertising, and marketplace mechanics, he brings sharp insights and real-world tactics to the column each week.
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