Commerce Media: The Third Wave of Digital Advertising & Enabling Commerce Everywhere

The Rise of Retail Media

Retail media represents the "third wave" of digital advertising (after search and social), transforming how brands reach consumers at the critical point of purchase. By definition, retail media refers to advertising placed directly within retailers and apps, leveraging their first-party customer data to deliver highly targeted promotions.

The Broader Context: Commerce Media

Retail media is part of the larger "commerce media" ecosystem, a transformative force that McKinsey defines as "the use of data and technology to combine media and commerce capabilities, delight customers, and deliver growth for brands and retailers." Commerce media extends beyond traditional retail sites to include marketplaces, social platforms, and any digital touchpoint where shopping and content converge. This ecosystem is expected to become a trillion-dollar market as it reshapes how consumers discover and buy products across the digital landscape. While retail media focuses specifically on retailer-owned channels, commerce media encompasses the entire universe of ecommerce-enabled experiences, making it a natural evolution of advertising in the digital age.

What makes commerce media so powerful? It reaches customers with high purchase intent, precisely when they're ready to buy. As one McKinsey commerce-media expert notes, retail media's key advantage is "optimizing to transactions – that's the unlock here," creating a direct link between ad impressions and actual sales.

The Explosive Growth

The numbers tell a compelling story:

Global retail media revenue reached approximately $101 billion in 2022, accounting for roughly 18% of all digital ad spend
U.S. retail media spending is projected to reach $55.3 billion in 2024, up from just $13.2 billion in 2019
Industry forecasts predict growth to $106 billion by 2027 in the U.S. alone

This growth dramatically outpaces digital advertising as a whole, underscoring retail media's increasingly central role in modern commerce.

Key Drivers Behind the Retail Media and Commerce Media Boom

Three primary factors are fueling this explosive growth:

Data-Driven Targeting & Attribution: Retailers' first-party data enables precise ad targeting and complete attribution. Marketing platforms can track sales tied to each campaign, providing visibility into ROI.
Integrated Commerce Experience: By placing ads at the point of purchase and collapsing the traditional marketing funnel, shoppers can now "buy directly from the media they consume," linking discovery immediately to checkout.
Shifts from Traditional Media: Changing TV viewership and cookie restrictions are pushing marketers toward channels with rich consumer data, measurable results, and direct calls-to-action. Brands are reallocating significant portions of their advertising budgets as a result.

Shoppable^®, Powering the "Commerce Everywhere" Future

In this evolving landscape, Shoppable^® is positioned as a key enabler of commerce media strategies with its technology platform designed to embed commerce directly into media and content. Shoppable's mission, "Commerce Everywhere," reflects its core purpose: turning any piece of content or advertisement into a buying opportunity.

Core Capabilities That Drive Commerce Media Success

Shoppable's platform offers several innovative solutions that align perfectly with retail media strategies:

1. Embeddable Shoppable Ads

Brands and retailers can create various ad formats (display, video, native, social) that include immediate purchase options. These ads feature advertiser-branded landing pages where consumers can add products to their cart and complete checkout without leaving the content experience. This seamless integration captures the entire conversion funnel, from impression to purchase, allowing marketers to optimize campaigns with real-time revenue data.

2. Patented Universal Checkout

Shoppable's standout innovation is its multiple-retailer checkout technology, protected by multiple issued U.S. patents. This universal checkout allows consumers to purchase products from one or many retailers in a single, unified transaction. Instead of sending shoppers on a fragmented "Where to Buy" journey filled with the advertiser's competitors' products, Shoppable's technology enables an immediate "Buy Now" experience, dramatically reducing friction and increasing completed transactions.

3. Comprehensive Data and Analytics

Central to retail media's value proposition is data, and Shoppable delivers with closed-loop analytics that connect every advertising dollar to actual sales. The platform "provides the full first-party data needed to optimize your commerce," enabling marketers to:

Track revenue in near real-time
Measure precise return on ad spend
Capture detailed order information
Build rich insights into shopper behavior

4. Universal Retailer Product Catalog API

Shoppable's extensive retailer relationships and combined retailer product database offer a critical advantage in the commerce media landscape. Through its Universal Retailer Product Catalog API, brands and retailers can quickly activate commerce experiences across multiple platforms without managing complex integrations with individual retailers. This unified access point significantly reduces technical barriers and accelerates time-to-market for commerce media initiatives, allowing marketers to focus on creating compelling experiences rather than solving integration challenges.

5. Instant Shop and DTC Lite

For content creators and brands looking to monetize their existing channels:

Instant Shop allows websites or social channels to feature curated digital storefronts with products. This shop can be embedded in the brand's website and/or linked to from social media campaigns.
DTC Lite transforms existing brand manufacturer websites into commerce-enabled experiences without requiring full direct-to-consumer e-commerce infrastructure

These tools enable publishers an option to earn affiliate commissions while brands can sell through their own media channels without building complex and expensive e-commerce systems.

Strategic Benefits for Both Brands and Retailers

For Brands:

Shoppable's platform extends reach beyond traditional e-commerce channels into any media or content touchpoint. Brands can transform influencer videos, social posts, emails, and other content into instant shopping experiences, effectively collapsing the sales funnel. This "content-to-commerce" capability allows brands to:

Meet shoppers at the point of inspiration
"Own the audience" throughout the entire purchase journey
Track closed-loop campaign data linking ad performance directly to sales
Refine retail media strategies based on comprehensive performance insights

For Retailers and Publishers:

Shoppable adds powerful new monetization capabilities:

Retailers can incorporate Shoppable technology into their own sites to expand inventory or on-site media to make every promotion instantly purchasable
Brands can incorporate Shoppable technology into their brand.com website to make every product instantly purchasable from the consumer's preferred retail channel.
Publishers and platforms can integrate Shoppable to sell products from retail partners directly within ads, articles, or content streams

In all cases, these partners benefit from increased e-commerce conversions and advertising revenue without handling inventory themselves. They also gain valuable transaction-level data that enhances future personalization and targeting capabilities.

Conclusion: Closing the Loop Between Advertising and Commerce

Commerce media is fundamentally transforming digital marketing by fusing advertising with actual commerce. Its remarkable growth stems from delivering what traditional channels often cannot: rich first-party data and tangible sales outcomes.

As this transformation accelerates, Shoppable stands as a critical enabler with its commerce-integration platform that turns any content into an instant shopping experience. By aligning perfectly with commerce media's core principles—seamless shopping experiences, first-party data collection, and closed-loop measurement—Shoppable empowers both brands and retailers to capitalize on this powerful trend.

The result is a more efficient digital ecosystem where every ad dollar becomes more effective and every media channel becomes a potential point of sale, truly enabling "Commerce Everywhere."