Commerce media is a transformative digital advertising market that is expected to reach more than $100 billion by 2027. Why?
Because commerce media is finally serving up ads based on what consumers actually buy, not guesses about what they’ll buy based on third-party cookies. For marketers, that means a whole lot higher ROI — particularly when advertising to audiences that are notoriously hard to reach: Gen Z and Millennials.
In this article, we’ll share five commerce media trends to pay attention to. But first, a bit of background.
The Commerce Media Landscape Today: How the Market Has Evolved and Where It’s Heading
Thanks to the internet, retail advertising has allowed businesses to reach audiences of unprecedented size. Over time, physical retail advertising has evolved into digital advertising and marketing, which have been more personalized versions of advertising compared to its predecessors of print and TV & radio advertising. Businesses can track consumers’ interests and physical locations, making ads targeted to specific populations and locations.
Social media and media streaming services have further increased the amount of media available to consumers on-demand. Advertisements have found their way to social sites like Instagram and streaming platforms like Hulu, both of which are considered performance marketing channels. With 83% of U.S. adults alone subscribing to streaming services, running ads on streaming services creates a significant opportunity for businesses to reach more consumers and more directly (assuming the consumer is subscribed to a streaming service plan that includes ads).
But as consumer online activity continues to grow, consumers become more concerned with their data privacy, and more and more federal and state privacy laws appear, advertising is shifting away from cookies and to first-party data.
This is where commerce media comes into play. Commerce media uses past transaction behavior (what they purchase, how often they purchase, how much they spend, and brand loyalty) to more accurately target ads and promotions. For example, you might:
- Reach lapsed shoppers with a tailored offer
- Promote high-margin SKUs to frequent buyers
- Upsell adjacent products based on a recent purchase
Commerce media also streamlines purchasing for consumers. Previous retail advertising, like Target commercials on television, previously required that a consumer 1) watch the commercial and 2) “leave” the television, (3) open their phone or computer, (4) go to the ecommerce site or head to a physical store to make a purchase.
With certain commerce media networks, like Kard, a consumer can:
- Get an email about a new cash back offer, see a cash back offer in their banking app, or get a push notification reminding them of an offer
- Click on the offer, which takes them straight to the merchant — sometimes straight to a particular category or SKU, depending on what the offer is for.
This “through-ad” social media purchase funnel is one emerging commerce media trend we’ll cover in the sections to come.
Traditionally, the commerce media ecosystem has included marketers, media owners, and consumers. For a while, the commerce media ecosystem has been mainly comprised of retail media networks (RMNs). Think Amazon, Walmart, and Target selling physical and digital ad space to CPG brands who want to target people when they’re already shopping.
But now, we’re starting to see big financial institutions like AmEx and Mastercard spin up their own commerce media networks (CMNs), which let brands advertise to folks who have already made similar purchases or are already loyal customers of their partners. There are even independent commerce media networks like Kard that work with a number of different financial institutions and fintechs to reach an even bigger audience of Gen Z and Millennial shoppers.
To give you a fuller picture of where this space is headed, here are five trends to keep an eye on:
Trend 1: Programmatic Commerce Advertising: Automation and Intelligent Buying
Programmatic technologies are being adapted for commerce media, creating new opportunities and challenges.
Programmatic media (also known as programmatic advertising) is the automated buying and selling of digital advertising in real-time by using advanced algorithms and technology platforms. It’s helpful because:
- It’s fast. Advertisers can bid on and potentially purchase ad inventory on a website in milliseconds.
- It’s based on your specific requirements. You plug in audience interests, demographics, and online behavior, and the algorithm finds the best inventory for you, optimizing a company’s resources and ROI.
RMNs have offered programmatic media to smaller companies for a while now. With their offerings, smaller and mid-sized companies have been able to design, customize, and automate their ads to sell their products to RMN audiences.
As commerce media continues to develop and potentially dominate advertising, it too is starting to offer programmatic media to keep up with the needs of enterprises looking to expand their ad reach and automate the advertising process.
Trend 2: Connected TV and Commerce Media Convergence: Shoppable Video Innovation
Connected TV (CTV) advertising and commerce media are beginning to intersect. It makes sense given the growing popularity of streaming services, where consumers view their favorite TV shows and films and sometimes binge episode after episode for hours on end.
And CTV isn’t just limited to Smart TVs. It includes any devices or platforms where consumers can stream content, such as mobile apps and desktop sites. Meeting consumers where they’re at —in this case, a streaming platform — can work to an advertiser’s advantage.
Unlike social media ads, which can be quickly and easily scrolled past by consumers, CTV ads may not be skippable on certain streaming platforms. On Paramount+, for example, ads are often unskippable and last 15 to 30 seconds.
Different streaming platforms have different specifications for placing CTV ads on their platforms. Many of them require a 16:9 aspect ratio and .mov or .mp4 requirements that meet the needs of wide screens, both on televisions and mobile devices.
Creative ads often make the best CTV ads. Advertisers should create ads that are visually appealing and personalized for the consumers viewing them. When creating these ads, advertisers should take into account demographic information, such as location or the time of day at which the consumer is viewing content, both of which can be collected by the advertiser itself, otherwise known as first-party data.
Trend 3: Privacy-First Collaboration
As commerce media grows, so does scrutiny around data usage, consent, and compliance. To balance precision targeting with privacy, commerce media players are increasingly relying on secure collaboration environments.
Clean rooms, for example, allow advertisers, retailers, and partners to match and analyze first-party data without exposing individual identities, which keeps campaigns compliant while still producing actionable results. Instead of sharing raw customer records, each party brings hashed or aggregated data into a neutral environment where overlaps, conversions, and performance trends can be analyzed safely.
Snowflake and LiveRamp let brands combine their own CRM or loyalty data with a media network’s audience data to answer practical questions: Who converted? What drove incremental lift? Which segments overlap across channels?
Financial commerce media networks follow the same privacy-first logic. Mastercard’s commerce media offering, for example, relies on permissioned transaction data, meaning cardholders have explicitly consented through loyalty or offer programs. That consent-first foundation helps financial networks scale advertising without undermining trust.
At Kard, we don’t collect any PII by design, and we operate in full compliance with SOC 2 and PCI SAQ standards. We’re also rolling out optional VPNs, adding another layer of protection for enterprise issuers if they choose to use it.
As commerce media expands across industries, safe ways of sharing data are becoming less of a “nice to have” and more of a baseline requirement.
Trend 4: Category-Specific Commerce Media Networks
As commerce media expands, many category leaders are building their own networks around high-intent, category-specific data.
Hospitality
In June 2025, Marriott International launched Marriott Media, becoming the first major hotel chain to stand up a dedicated commerce media network. With 230M+ Bonvoy loyalty members and more than 200 traveler attributes, Marriott can target ads across the full travel journey, before, during, and after a stay.
Ads run across Marriott’s owned channels, including its website, mobile app, and in-room smart TVs, and extend off-site through a partnership with The Trade Desk, all powered by Marriott’s first-party data. Early advertisers like Visa and Gatorade have used Marriott’s data to reach travelers with context-aware messaging tied to real travel moments, such as promoting hydration products to guests on the go.
Airlines
Airlines are following a similar playbook. United Airlines launched United Kinective Media, serving ads in-flight and in-app using passenger itineraries and loyalty data. These networks monetize moment-based intent (when consumers are actively planning a trip or traveling), which makes ads feel timely rather than intrusive.
Food delivery and rideshare
Restaurant delivery platforms like DoorDash and Deliveroo offer advertisers high-confidence targeting based on ordering behavior and time of day, making them especially attractive for food, beverage, and CPG brands.
At Cannes Lions this summer, Uber Advertising shared that it is expanding Ride Offers. This ad product empowers brands to reward Uber riders with high-value offers on their next eligible ride, internationally. The product has already been doing extremely well — Uber reported a $1.5B+ annual run rate in 2025 — 60% YoY growth.
Pharmacy
Pharmacy chains, including Walgreens and CVS, have even built media networks around shopper and patient purchase data, giving advertisers access to deterministic health-adjacent signals.
Trend 5: Independent Commerce Media Networks
Retail media networks only see a slice of a shopper’s world — what they buy at Amazon, Target, or Walmart. And with the number of credit cards, debit cards, and fintech products people use today, AmEx and Mastercard’s commerce media networks only see a slice of a shopper’s world, too.
Independent commerce media networks solve that fragmentation.
Because they aren’t tied to a single retailer or a single card issuer, they aggregate transaction data across many banks, fintechs, and payment types, and across hundreds of merchants. The result is a broader, more representative view of real consumer behavior — not just where someone shops, but how and when.
Take Kard. Our network includes 47M+ cardholders (and more through partners like Fetch), transacting at hundreds of merchants across credit cards, debit cards, and fintech platforms — including Buy Now Pay Later apps, which saw 9% YoY volume growth this year. That diversity expands both inventory and signal: more places to activate offers, and more transaction data to inform targeting, measurement, and optimization.
For marketers, this breadth translates into sharper audience insights and cash back offers that reflect how people actually spend across brands, categories, and payment methods, not just within a single ecosystem.
Want a sneak peek of the Kard platform? Book time with our team today.
FAQs on Commerce Media Latest Trends
What is commerce media and how does it differ from traditional digital advertising?
Commerce media is a type of digital advertising that uses first-party data and is built on commerce platforms. This type of media links ad exposure directly to verified transactions, which means:
- It reaches people who are ready to buy — people who are actively browsing, booking, or checking out.
- Discounts, promos, and rewards are surfaced based on consumers’ actual purchase behavior.
- It’s measurable by design. Because sponsored ads run in closed-loop ecosystems, you can track spend to sales, including lift, loyalty impact, and even SKU-level detail.
How do retail media networks generate revenue and what value do they provide to advertisers?
Retail media networks (RMNs) generate revenue by selling ad inventory to advertisers. Advertisers benefit because their brand and products are exposed a specific audience.
What measurement capabilities make commerce media more effective than traditional advertising channels?
Commerce media is more effective than traditional advertising because it’s based on consumers’ historical transactions. That first-party data helps them figure out what kind of ads, discounts, and cash back offers would be most appropriate to serve to a particular audience, which allows a commerce media platform to measure first-party consumer data to later advertise with. This allows a commerce media platform to create more relevant and targeted ads.
How can advertisers get started with commerce media if they're new to the channel?
Advertisers who are new to commerce media can get started by reading about what it is, finding examples of companies who are utilizing this advertising strategy, and partnering with independent commerce media networks like Kard who have a 360-degree view of their customers’ shopping patterns, and lets them send hyperpersonalized cash back offers that prove incremental impact at scale.
How is connected TV being integrated into commerce media strategies?
Connected TV is being integrated into commerce media strategies by simplifying the purchasing process for consumers. Introducing QR codes in an ad that are linked to a product eliminate barriers and steps for a consumer to make a purchase.
How do programmatic buying and commerce media work together?
Programmatic buying automates the purchasing and selling of digital advertising space. Previously, this process was only seen on RMNs, but with the emergence of commerce media and its continued expansion, this media format is also making use of programmatic buying to quickly buy and sell ad space on commerce media spaces like banking apps and CTV.
What should brands consider when selecting commerce media network partners?
Brands should consider the scope and size of a commerce media network’s audience. Does the network being considered have an audience similar to the brand’s audience? Would this audience buy their product? How large is the network’s audience?
Kard, for example, partners with financial institutions and fintechs that primarily serve Gen Z and Millennial shoppers, and uses predictive AI to power hyperpersonalized cash back offers to that audience. For brands, this approach is far more targeted than traditional media buying channels, and there’s no upfront cost — they only pay when a consumer transacts as a result of seeing the cash back offer.
