National money is moving
Retailer-owned inventory now competes directly with open-web, social and television budgets.
Retailers are pulling brand budgets into their media networks, and keeping more of every dollar.
Retail media revenue is compounding far faster than the advertising budgets of major CPG companies. The promise is closed-loop measurement; the pressure is that some retailer asks still behave like a sales-linked toll.
Follow the money
Choose one retailer and one brand. Indexed growth shows pace; reported dollars shows each series on its own labeled axis.
Index = 100 at each series’ first disclosed year. Missing years remain blank.
A like-for-like growth window
Every bar uses the same FY2022–FY2025 window. Three-year compound annual growth rates put retailer ad revenue and brand media spending on one consistent clock.
Retailer ad revenue · FY2022–FY2025 CAGR
Brand media spend · FY2022–FY2025 CAGR
Revenue and spending are not the same metric. “Advertising,” “advertising and promotion,” and “advertising and other marketing” are also different accounting baskets. The comparison shows direction and pace, not a direct transfer rate.
Reported evidence behind the charts
+25%
Unilever US digital commerce sales in FY2025, reported as driven by retail media and content.
Unilever FY2025 highlights ↗Five signals in the record
The recurring pattern across 282 screened files and the company disclosures behind the charts.
Measurement is the lever
Closed-loop purchase data and incrementality are the reasons brands give for shifting spend.
The funnel is widening
Networks that began near conversion are selling reach, streaming video and brand-building media.
The toll is still visible
Brands ask for performance, yet some retailer requests remain tied to a percentage of sales.
Teams are converging
Sales, shopper marketing and brand media are quietly reorganizing around retailer data.
What leaders said — and did
Eleven sourced excerpts from eleven distinct sources. Each one anchors a signal above, with provenance labeled in place.
6 highlighted appearances
Podcast · Brave Commerce01 · one-third + 2–3× ROI
“Almost a third of our media is invested through retailers, retail media networks… In a campaign with Amazon… we saw ROI that was two to three times higher than our normal campaigns or average ROI.”
Article · Modern Retail04 · 50% sales exposure
“The JBP [with Walmart], we tried to kill it and then my sales team got scared. Because, like everyone else, 50% of my sales go through Walmart.”
Podcast · The CPG Guys02 · +9.2% sales lift
“We saw… a 9.2% increase in incremental sales lift and a 2.5% higher ROAS versus [the] InMarket CPG benchmark.”
Case study · Amazon Ads02 · 16× new-to-brand
“AMC provides rich signals that help Poppi see a longer string of attribution across a complex multitouch across media… putting the insights coming from AMC into action.”
Reported result: 16× more new-to-brand customers in under six months; 34% of Q1 2022 ad-attributed sales came from new-to-brand buyers.
Podcast · EMARKETER03 · CTV + open web
“[Walmart Connect is] leaving our store, leaving the Walmart shopping app and finding our customers on the open web… on streaming TV environments… showing them brand messages and encouraging them to come back to Walmart to make purchases.”
Article · Digiday05 · brand + shopper
“Some of the more sophisticated CPGs have actually moved brand and shopper under the same marketing leadership and they’re measuring them holistically… It’s not one versus the other.”
Video interview · Beet.TV03 · brand to sale
“If I know that I’m going to be spending something on brand building… I can still track it and see that it’s gone down to that lower funnel and resulted in that sale.”
Roundtable · The Drum03 · brand building
“The biggest myth about commerce media is that it’s lower funnel… The fact that we’re still sitting here talking only about ROI is yesterday’s thinking.”
Article · Campaign US04 · investment terms
“Retailers still have that similar control in that they’re asking for brands to invest a certain amount of money… But brands are trying to really control a lot more what they get for that money.”
Article · FoodNavigator-USA02 · 2.1× vs 1.5×
“Top-of-funnel retail media pays back 2.1 times for mid-sized brands versus 1.5 for the bottom-of-funnel placements where about 86% of all retail media dollars sit today.”
Release · DPAA02 · 14% average lift
“We’ve been seeing positive incremental sales from endemic brands on our network for years now… it’s important to look back and provide advertisers with a baseline.”
Vendor-reported baseline: 14% average incremental sales lift across 16 CPG studies; the top product reached 17.6%.
Sources, definitions and caveats
Retailer lines are advertising revenue. Brand lines are disclosed spending and use each company’s own definition. Fiscal calendars differ. L’Oréal reports euros; all other series report US dollars. No missing year is interpolated.
Walmart and Target first disclosed separate advertising revenue in FY2022, so their 2021 chart points are blank. Coca-Cola’s FY2025 value was disclosed as a rounded $5.4 billion. Transcript labels distinguish publisher text, video captions and machine transcription.
This is a fixed research snapshot. It does not update automatically.
- Amazon 2023 10-K
- Amazon 2025 10-K
- Walmart FY2022 release
- Walmart FY2023 call
- Walmart FY2024 release
- Walmart FY2025 release
- Target FY2022–FY2024
- Target FY2025 10-K
- P&G 2023 10-K
- P&G 2025 annual report
- Coca-Cola 2021 10-K
- Coca-Cola 2023 10-K
- Coca-Cola 2024 10-K
- Coca-Cola 2025 10-K
- Colgate 2022 annual report
- Colgate 2023 10-K
- Colgate 2024 10-K
- Colgate 2025 filing index
- L’Oréal 2021–2023
- L’Oréal 2024 statements
- L’Oréal 2025 results
- PepsiCo 2021–2022
- PepsiCo 2023–2024
- PepsiCo 2025 10-K
Research snapshot: September 15, 2026282 files screened · company-reported figures