What Is Retail Media?
Retail media refers to advertising placements sold by retailers on their own platforms: their e-commerce websites, mobile apps, loyalty programme communications, and in-store digital screens. The defining feature is that these placements sit inside an environment where consumers are already in shopping mode, often with a product category or specific item already in mind.
Amazon Advertising is the global benchmark: brands pay to have their products appear at the top of search results on Amazon.com, reach shoppers browsing related categories, and appear in recommendation widgets. The principle applies equally to any retailer with sufficient digital traffic and transactional data.
A shopper searching for "shampoo" on a supermarket app and seeing a sponsored result from a premium haircare brand is experiencing retail media.
What distinguishes retail media from other digital advertising channels is the quality of the data underlying it. Retailers possess genuine purchase history: they know what shoppers bought, how often, at what price, and in what combination with other products.
This first-party purchase data is far more predictive of future buying behaviour than inferred interest signals from browsing or social media activity.
As third-party cookie deprecation continues to reshape digital advertising, this retailer-owned data has become one of the most valuable targeting assets in digital marketing.
The retail media landscape encompasses several formats. Sponsored product listings appear directly in search and category results. Display banners placed on category and product pages reach shoppers at the consideration stage.
Off-site retail media extends retailer data to third-party placements, allowing a grocery chain to target its loyalty members with brand ads across the open web. In-store digital screens activated by purchase data represent the physical extension of the network.
Retail Media In Practice
In the South African retail market, major grocery and general merchandise retailers have developed formal retail media offerings.
A fast-moving consumer goods brand selling through a large South African supermarket chain can purchase sponsored placements that position its products at the top of relevant search results on the retailer's app.
When a shopper in Cape Town searches for "cooking oil," the brand's sponsored result appears above organic listings.
The brand pays on a cost-per-click basis and receives sales attribution data directly from the retailer, allowing accurate measurement of return on ad spend against actual basket data rather than estimated click-through intent.
For brands in categories like food, beverage, personal care, and household products, retail media is increasingly essential. Competition on physical shelf space is finite and expensive to win through trade promotions alone.
Digital shelf positioning through retail media allows brands to compete for share of search on the platform where their target buyers are already shopping.
South African brands with existing retailer relationships should engage their key retail partners about available media inventory, particularly as local retailer platforms continue to expand their digital footprint in Gauteng, the Western Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal.
What retail media is
Retail media is advertising that appears on retailers' own digital properties, such as their websites, apps and platforms, where brands pay to promote their products to shoppers who are already browsing and buying, so that the advertising reaches consumers at the point of shopping on the retailer's own channels. As large retailers and marketplaces have built substantial digital audiences of shoppers, they have created retail media networks, advertising platforms that let brands advertise on the retailer's site and app (for example, sponsored product listings within a retailer's search and browse results, display ads on the retailer's platform, and related placements), reaching shoppers in a high-intent, purchase-focused context. Retail media has grown rapidly as a major advertising channel, because it reaches consumers at or near the point of purchase on the retailer's own platform (where shopping intent is high), and because retailers have valuable first-party data about their shoppers that can inform targeting, making retail media an effective, data-rich, purchase-proximate advertising channel. It is particularly relevant for brands that sell products through retailers and marketplaces, who can use retail media to promote their products to shoppers on those retailers' platforms, gaining visibility in the shopping environment where purchase decisions are made. Understanding retail media matters because it has become a significant and fast-growing advertising channel, advertising on retailers' own digital properties to reach shoppers at the point of purchase, so knowing what retail media is, advertising on retailers' platforms to shoppers browsing and buying there, helps a business (particularly one selling through retailers) understand this channel and its value for reaching consumers in a high-intent shopping context on the retailers' own channels.
Retail media for brands and how it differs
Retail media offers brands, especially those selling through retailers and marketplaces, a way to promote their products to shoppers on the retailers' own platforms at the point of purchase, and understanding its availability and how it differs from channels like Google Shopping helps a business consider its relevance. The value of retail media for a brand is reaching shoppers in a high-intent, purchase-focused context (on the retailer's site or app where people are actively shopping and buying), often with the benefit of the retailer's first-party shopper data for targeting, and gaining visibility for its products within the shopping environment (such as appearing prominently in the retailer's product search or browse results through sponsored placements), which can drive product sales on those platforms, so it is particularly valuable for brands whose products are sold through retailers and marketplaces. On availability, retail media is offered by large retailers and marketplaces that have built retail media networks, and its availability to a brand depends on the retailers and marketplaces relevant to that brand's market having such advertising platforms; as retail media has grown globally and major retailers and marketplaces expand these offerings, retail media opportunities have become increasingly available, and where retailers or marketplaces serving the South African market offer retail media advertising, South African brands can use it to advertise on those platforms, so its availability for a South African brand depends on the specific retailers and marketplaces it sells through or wants to reach offering retail media, which is increasingly the case as the channel grows. On how it differs from Google Shopping: Google Shopping advertises products through Google's search and shopping surfaces (showing product listings in Google's results, driven by a product feed, to people searching on Google), reaching shoppers as they search on Google, whereas retail media advertises on retailers' own digital properties (their sites and apps), reaching shoppers who are already on the retailer's platform browsing and buying, so the difference is the platform and context: Google Shopping reaches shoppers searching on Google (a search-engine shopping context), while retail media reaches shoppers on retailers' own platforms (a retailer shopping context), and both aim to promote products to shoppers but in different environments, with retail media placing ads within the retailer's own shopping experience and Google Shopping within Google's search results. For a South African brand, retail media is relevant where the retailers and marketplaces it sells through or wants to reach offer retail media advertising, allowing it to promote its products to shoppers on those platforms at the point of purchase, complementing channels like Google Shopping (which reaches shoppers searching on Google). Because retail media reaches shoppers in a high-intent context on retailers' own platforms, and is a fast-growing channel, brands selling through retailers should consider it where available for their relevant retailers and marketplaces, understanding it as a distinct, purchase-proximate channel alongside search-based shopping advertising, which is the practical relevance of retail media for product brands.
FAQ
Is retail media available to brands advertising in South Africa?
Yes. South African retailers including Checkers, Pick n Pay, Woolworths, and Makro have developed retail media networks that allow FMCG and consumer brands to place sponsored product listings and display ads on their platforms. These networks offer access to active shoppers and measurable sales uplift data.
How does retail media differ from Google Shopping?
Google Shopping targets users searching on Google who may or may not buy that day. Retail media targets shoppers actively browsing a specific retailer's website or app, often already in a buying session. This makes retail media intent signals sharper and conversion rates typically higher for the categories that retailer carries.