The 2024 Forecast on Retail Media was released by the eMarketer team, and the data presented therein carries some key implications for how investment decisions should be approached regarding allocation of funds.

In the Americas and Europe, Retail Media continues to be predominantly driven by the US market. For instance, the US market is exceeded by 15 times the size of the next largest market, the UK.

• Despite its magnitude, the growth of retail media in the US is keeping pace with that of smaller markets, growing at half the rate of Mexico and Brazil, which are 100 times smaller but growing faster than all other markets surveyed in their report.
• While Amazon holds a 75% market share in the US in terms of retail media spending, globally it holds only a 42% share.

Challengers such as Alibaba Group,  and JD.COM in CN are dominant in the $55 Billion China market, while Meituan and Mercado Libre in MX BRAR are experiencing rapid growth in Latin America.

Impact on your Global Strategy

The US market retains its position as the most important market, characterized by high growth and intense competition among other advertisers. For those with a global scope, the current environment presents an excellent opportunity to consider diversification. Europe emerges as an intriguing prospect for achieving significant returns on advertising investments.

The fragmentation of the European market across various countries provides brands equipped with the appropriate systems and processes the ability to efficiently identify opportunities for "underpriced attention" within emerging Retail Media Networks (RMNs), or even less competitive markets within established ecosystems such as Amazon. Latin America's growth warrants significant attention. With capital inflows accelerating relative to the current market size, this trend may indicate early movers implementing strategies similar to those anticipated to be successful in Europe.