# Retail media closes the gap: 43% of CPG brands underutilize in-store screens while grocers build full-funnel ad platforms

*IAB and Grocery TV data show retail media now serves every stage of purchase, but most brands treat it as a point-of-sale tactic.*

By **Jenny Huang Goodman MPA MSc MHSA, Principal** — The Stash Edge, Hako Shikin LLC.
Published 2026-10-07.

Canonical: https://www.pops4.com/stash/articles/retail-insider-q3-2026-report-2026-10-07t06-7
Subject: Retail Insider Q3 2026 Report
Tags: retail media, in-store advertising, loyalty integration, cpg marketing, grocery tv, commerce measurement

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A new study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Grocery TV found that **43 percent** of marketers admit they underutilize in-store retail media, even as the channel consolidates with loyalty programs, commerce measurement, and AI-driven activation. The research shows marketers increasingly view in-store screens as a full-funnel platform—not just a last-mile trigger—but most brands still run them as afterthoughts, according to the report cited by Retail Insider and industry press.

The mechanism is convergence. Retail media now sits inside the same stack as loyalty data, shopper ID graphs, and attribution feeds. A brand can serve a video to a logged-in shopper at the deli counter, measure basket lift within hours, and retarget based on purchase behavior. Grocery TV's network, installed in thousands of U.S. supermarkets, feeds exposure events back into demand-side platforms. IAB's research confirms that marketers recognize the capability—they rate in-store retail media effective for awareness, consideration, and conversion—but budget allocation lags perception.

Why it works: retail media collapses the distance between message and transaction. A shopper sees an ad for a new snack brand on the screen above the freezer aisle, scans a loyalty app for a coupon, and adds the product to the cart before leaving the section. The retailer logs the exposure, the redemption, and the incrementality. The brand gets a closed-loop read on creative performance within the purchase session. No probabilistic matching, no multi-touch guesswork. The ad runs where the SKU lives, and the register closes the loop.

Retail Insider's Q3 2026 report notes that marketing is moving closer to the point of commerce, integrating retail media, loyalty, brand activations, AI, and commerce-linked measurement. The pattern holds across channels: Amazon's onsite ads, Walmart Connect's offsite retargeting, Instacart's sponsored placements, and now the in-store screen networks that complete the environment. The infrastructure exists. The lag is operational—most physical-product brands still plan retail media as a promotional afterthought rather than a primary channel.

The steal for a small brand: start with one retailer's self-serve retail media platform. Kroger Precision Marketing, Albertsons Media Collective, and Walmart Connect all offer programmatic access with modest minimums. Allocate **$500** to test a single in-store screen campaign in ten stores where your product has distribution. Use existing product photography and a five-second loop: pack shot, benefit line, aisle location. Tie the flight to a loyalty offer loaded into the retailer's app. Run it for two weeks. Pull the basket data from the retail media dashboard and compare exposed households to a control group the platform generates automatically.

Measure lift in units per thousand impressions, not just reach. If you see a **10 percent** increase in velocity among exposed shoppers, scale the buy into more stores and test a second creative variant. If the data shows no lift, shift the budget to a different retailer or a different aisle placement. The platform will tell you which dayparts and which sections convert. Use that read to inform your next trade promotion or your DTC creative. The in-store screen is not the end of the funnel—it is a testing environment for message-market fit at the moment of purchase decision.

The convergence Retail Insider describes is not speculative. It is live infrastructure. The brands that treat retail media as a closed-loop channel—complete with creative iteration, audience segmentation, and incrementality measurement—will own the aisle before the rest of the category understands what shifted.

## The takeaway

In-store retail media now offers full-funnel targeting and closed-loop measurement, but most brands still run it as a promotional add-on instead of a primary test-and-scale channel.

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## Publisher

**Hako Shikin LLC** — Virginia Beach, Virginia. Founded 1997. ASI 217876 · DUNS 18-204-6339.
Principal and author: **Jenny Huang Goodman MPA MSc MHSA**.

- Author: https://www.huanggoodman.com/about
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