Retail media networks — ads served on retailer-owned surfaces like Amazon, Walmart, Tesco and Sainsbury's — crossed the $140 billion mark globally in 2024 and are forecast to reach roughly $169 billion in 2025 (eMarketer Worldwide Retail Media Ad Spending Forecast 2024). That makes retail media the third-largest digital ad channel after search and display — and the fastest-growing. The structural reason is simple: the money is now sitting next to the basket, where purchase intent is highest and attribution is cleanest.
Amazon Ads alone reported $56.2 billion in advertising revenue in 2024, up 18% year-on-year, per Amazon's Q4 2024 earnings report. That places Amazon behind only Google and Meta in total ad revenue — and well ahead of every other platform. For a premium F&B brand selling on Amazon, Sponsored Products remains the highest-intent ad unit on the internet: a search-triggered placement in front of a shopper already holding a credit card.
Where premium F&B should sit
Not every retail media network is created equal. Amazon Ads and Walmart Connect are performance-first — attributable, short feedback loops, suited to efficiency targets. UK grocery RMNs — Tesco Media, Sainsbury's Nectar360, Boots Media Group — behave more like brand-building channels, with richer audience data tied to loyalty cards but messier in-store attribution. Sampling programmes through these networks have started to show measurable uplift on repeat rate, which is the metric that actually matters for a premium F&B brand still building frequency.
What to shift, and when
The honest recommendation for a premium F&B challenger in 2026: pull 10–15% of paid social budget into Amazon Sponsored Products against core ranging SKUs, and test a single grocer-media activation against a promotional window where you already have feature display. Do not abandon paid social — the brand-building job it does at the top of the funnel still has no equivalent on retail media. Treat RMNs as the lower-funnel layer that converts the demand you built elsewhere, not as a replacement for demand generation itself.
