Retail media is experiencing one of the fastest global expansions in advertising history.
In 2023, it surpassed $128 billion worldwide, grew faster than search and social combined, and is projected to reach $160–180 billion by 2026 (GroupM, McKinsey).

And here’s the important part:

This isn’t a trend.
This is a structural rewrite of how commerce and advertising connect.

What’s happening now is bigger than “putting screens inside stores,” and bigger than “using shopper data for ads.”
We’re watching the industry shift from digital impressions to real-world, commerce-linked influence — measurable at the SKU level, store by store, hour by hour.

Once this shift starts, it doesn’t reverse.

Why it’s happening (and happening everywhere)

Across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, retailers are discovering the same truth:

They sit at the richest moment of intent in the customer journey —
and they own the only dataset that still works in a privacy-first world:
verified purchase behavior.

Brands are following.
Budgets are shifting.
And the market is organizing around a new kind of infrastructure — one built at the intersection of media, data, and physical retail.

Why stores are suddenly measurable

Stores used to be “offline.”
Now they generate signals every few seconds:

• what’s selling

• what’s in stock

• how shoppers move

• how weather and time influence demand

For the first time, advertising inside stores can behave more like an adaptive system than a static display — learning from outcomes, reacting to conditions, and driving measurable uplift.

But only if the right technology exists.

Why we are building for real stores — not the web

Most ad-tech was built for browsers, apps, and perfect connectivity.
Retail has none of that.

Running high-performance retail media at scale requires technology that can:

• operate across hundreds or thousands of stores

• react in real time to inventory, demand, and context

• survive unstable networks and device variation

• respect retailer data boundaries

• learn from purchases, not clicks

That’s why we’re building a new kind of ad server, DSP, and measurement platform — one engineered specifically for the real world where commerce actually happens.

What this series covers

In the sections that follow, we break down:

Part I — Why retail media is exploding globally
It’s not “screens in stores.” It’s the rise of a data-rich, last-mile media channel with unprecedented commercial intent.

Part II — Why POS data changes everything
Not all data is equal. We explain why transaction-level truth unlocks accuracy, relevance, and uplift that digital ad tech simply can’t match.

Part III — Why technology is the real differentiator
Retail environments break traditional ad systems. We show the engineering behind a platform built to run in unpredictable, high-variance physical environments — and why that matters for performance.

This isn’t a product announcement.

It’s a blueprint for the next decade of commerce-driven advertising.

If you want to understand where retail media is going —
and why the winners will be those who master stores, data, and real-world infrastructure —
start with Part I.