Share Your Views on Investment, AI & Retail Media Growth in our Latest Attitudes to Retail Media Survey

As Retail and Commerce Media investment continues to accelerate, the conversations happening across the industry are becoming more nuanced. Beyond growth figures, businesses are increasingly focused on proving value, improving measurement, integrating teams and technologies, navigating fragmentation, and understanding where AI can deliver meaningful impact.

Against this backdrop, we have launched the third edition of our Attitudes to Retail Media Survey to capture how advertisers, agencies, retailers, media owners, and ad tech companies are approaching the next stage of market development.

The survey explores how both the buy-side and sell-side are adapting their commerce media strategies amid rapid market growth and transformation. This year’s study will provide deeper insight into investment patterns, organisational maturity, measurement expectations, barriers to adoption, and the increasing role of AI in shaping the next phase of commerce media growth.

The findings will help benchmark where the market stands today and where advertisers, agencies, retailers, and media owners expect the biggest shifts over the next 12 months. The study will also showcase the opportunity of partnering with retailers and demonstrate how commerce media can enhance digital advertising, while identifying the key industry challenges that still need to be addressed.

What’s New for 2026?

This year’s survey introduces several new areas of focus, including:

• Expanded market coverage into MENA through a partnership with IAB MENA
• New questions exploring how AI is influencing commerce media investment, strategy, optimisation, and innovation

Key Themes Explored in the Survey

Buy-Side: Advertisers & Agencies

The survey examines:

• Current retail and commerce media investment priorities and partnership satisfaction
• Budget allocation across on-site, off-site, and digital in-store media
• Organisational structures and commerce media maturity levels
• Key drivers of adoption, including first-party data access and closed-loop measurement
• Challenges such as fragmentation, lack of standardisation, and proving ROI internally
• Expectations around attribution, measurement, and omnichannel reporting

Sell-Side: Retailers & Media Owners

The survey also explores:

• Commerce media propositions and revenue models
• Advertising formats and measurement capabilities
• Internal structures and development roadmaps
• Drivers of investment and business growth
• Operational and organisational barriers to scaling commerce media offerings

The Role of AI

Across both buy-side and sell-side respondents, the survey will investigate where the industry expects the biggest increase in AI-driven investment, including:

• AI creative generation
• AI-powered campaign management and optimisation
• Agentic commerce and conversational discovery

Take Part

The survey takes approximately 10-15 minutes to complete, and all responses will remain strictly confidential. Respondents will also receive a copy of the final results report.

We encourage advertisers, agencies, retailers, media owners, and ad tech companies to participate and help shape the future direction of Retail & Commerce Media.

Join Our Webinar

To support the launch, we are also hosting Retail Media Pulse 2026: Early Signals & What Happens Next on 4th June at 14:00 CET. This fast-paced, 30-minute webinar will share early insights from this year’s study and feature exclusive insights from Colin Lewis, Co-Founder of Retail Media Works, who will present highlights from his annual 7 Challenges of Retail Media report.