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Retail media: advertising on marketplaces and in retailers' stores

| Article: 5 min read | Marketing

Retail media is advertising a brand or seller buys on the platform where the purchase happens: a marketplace, a retailer's online store or its app. Ads are shown to people who are already searching for a product or comparing, and the result is visible in that same platform's sales.

For a Ukrainian seller the nearest example is promoting products inside Prom or Rozetka. This article does not recommend any platform and does not sell advertising: it explains how the channel works, what is known about the market in 2025–2026 and how to work out whether it pays for you.

In plain words

Ordinary ads on Google or social media send the buyer to your site. In retail media the buyer stays on the platform: you pay for your product to be shown higher in the marketplace's search or in a recommendations block. The platform knows what the person has bought, so its targeting and sales attribution are more precise than those of external advertising.

IAB Europe, in its updated "101 Guide to Retail & Commerce Media" (July 2025), splits retail media into three environments: on-site (ads on the retailer's own sites and apps: sponsored products, sponsored display, video), off-site (the retailer's data combined with third-party properties: display, video, social, CTV) and digital in-store (digital screens in the store) (ppc.land on the IAB Europe guide). For a small online store, practically only on-site is relevant.

What is known about the market

  • Global size. According to a WARC forecast (November 2025), retail media spending in 2026 will reach 196.7 billion dollars, 16% of all ad spend and +12.4% on 2025; growth is slowing to single digits. The display share of on-site is under 30%, but future growth is expected to come from display and off-site (Advanced Television).
  • An updated estimate. The WARC report "Future of Commerce Media 2026" (August 2026) already puts it at 200.4 billion dollars in 2026 and 223.4 billion in 2027 (+11.5%); excluding Amazon, growth is 9.8% (The Desk). Note that one source's estimates changed within nine months. These are forecasts, not fact.
  • Concentration. Amazon, per Walrus Intelligence data as reported by WARC, took 78% of US retail media spending in 2025 (Walmart 7.5%, the rest 14.5%) (The Desk). This is the US: the Ukrainian market is built differently.
  • Europe. IAB Europe: on-site retail media grew 22.2% in 2024 to over 10 billion euros, and 53% of advertisers name the lack of standards as a barrier to investment (ppc.land). This is 2024 data presented in the 2025 guide.

Ukraine. There is no fresh public data on the size of retail media in Ukraine or the cost of advertising on Rozetka or Prom. Only the scale of the platforms is known: by the estimate of Rozetka's co-founders, together with Prom it holds about half of the market, with almost 100 thousand sellers across the two platforms (Interfax-Ukraine, 13.03.2026). On its page, Prom names about 60 thousand sellers and 6 million Ukrainians who buy regularly (Prom, page with data as of 2026).

What tools exist on Ukrainian platforms

Sources: a Spilno Agency piece dated 12.07.2026 and the Prom page:

  • PromoSpace is a paid tool for raising products in Prom's internal search. The agency advises first trying it on a few of your best-selling products (Spilno Agency).
  • ProSale is a Prom catalog and paid service that runs Google Shopping/Performance Max campaigns on the platform's behalf, not from your own ad account (same source; the Prom page also mentions "Promotion in the ProSale Catalog").
  • Paid store plans and commissions also affect visibility.

Prices and terms are not given in these sources, so look at them in the seller account. There is no confirmed description of a separate ad account for brands on Rozetka.

How to work out whether it pays

Retail media is easy to "buy" but hard to evaluate. The buyer might have purchased the product without ads, and the platform will show you the sale as "advertising-driven".

  1. Calculate the margin before ads per unit: price minus purchase cost, platform commission, delivery, returns (unit economics, gross margin).
  2. Set an allowable cost per order. Ad spend per order must be less than the margin, otherwise you are paying for a loss. Example (illustrative): a product at UAH 1,300, margin before ads UAH 330; if the ads cost UAH 250 per order, UAH 80 is left, and after 8% of orders not collected there may be nothing left.
  3. ROAS and payback. Look at ROAS together with margin: 400% ROAS on a thin margin can be a loss. For long cycles, add payback.
  4. Check the incremental lift. Compare sales of products with and without ads (on other days or for similar products). If the product sells almost as well without ads, you are paying for what you would have got anyway. The platform's own report will not show this.
  5. Test small. As the agency advised for PromoSpace, start with a few products and grow when you see profit.

When it is worth considering

  • You already have sales on the platform and can see that you do not reach the top of the results organically.
  • The product is competitive on price and has reviews: rating and reviews affect display and conversion.
  • The margin is enough to pay for ads.

When to be careful

  • A product with no reviews and a worse price: ads will only raise the visibility of a poor offer.
  • Dependence on one platform. It sets the commissions and rules (marketplace). Sellers who own their sites usually build a separate channel (how to launch a store).
  • Complex logistics: on some platforms the platform stores and ships the product (FBO/FBS), which affects the economics.

Retail media for brands and for manufacturers

For a brand, it is a way to control its presence on the platform's shelf: to appear on the search page for a category, not just for the brand name. For a distributor that sells on several platforms, it is also a way to compare them by cost per order. There are no measurement standards yet (53% of advertisers in Europe name this as a barrier, see above), so compare platforms using your own numbers.

Common mistakes

  • Looking only at the platform's ROAS and not adding commissions, delivery and returns.
  • Advertising the whole range instead of a few products with proven demand.
  • Not telling an ad-driven sale from an organic one.
  • Paying for visibility with a poor product page (product page).
  • Forgetting the buy box: if the price is not the best, a view does not convert into a sale.
  • Relying on figures from US market forecasts when planning a Ukrainian budget.

FAQ

What is retail media in plain words? Advertising on the platform where the purchase happens, for example raising your product in a marketplace's search.

How is on-site different from off-site retail media? On-site is advertising on the retailer's own sites and apps. Off-site is advertising outside them, on external properties, using the retailer's data (per IAB Europe).

How much does advertising on Rozetka or Prom cost? There are no fresh public prices. Look at the terms in the seller account and compare them with your margin.

Should a small seller use retail media? If you already have sales on the platform, the margin is visible and the product is competitive, you can test it on a few items. First sort out reviews, price and availability.

Sources

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Google Ads / Meta Ads

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