Retail Media is the number one priority for Ecom leaders

Retail media is now the number one e-commerce spending priority among the retail innovation leaders surveyed by Boston Consulting Group and the World Retail Congress.

In BCG's The Innovation Edge for Retailers, 44% of innovation leaders identified retail media as a priority for e-commerce investment, ahead of marketplaces at 42% and social commerce at 39%.

That matters because retail media is no longer a peripheral advertising activity. For retailers that get it right, it connects customer data, e-commerce, stores, supplier relationships, media inventory and measurement into a high-margin growth capability.

The opportunity is not simply to sell more sponsored ads. The strongest Retail Media Networks create useful advertising propositions across in-store, onsite and offsite channels, make them easier for brands and agencies to buy, and use first-party data to improve targeting and prove effectiveness.

BCG's research is another signal that retail media needs to sit much closer to the core e-commerce and commercial agenda. The retailers that treat it as an integrated growth capability — rather than a bolt-on media sales operation — should be better placed to capture the opportunity.

For more on how SG-retail helps retailers build and optimise their approach, see our Retail Media consultancy work.