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Fabiano D. Lobo Ana Paula Paiva/Valor Retail media is no longer merely a channel for driving online retail sales and has begun to play a broader role. The term refers to advertising sold by retailers, particularly on their websites and apps, but the business now encompasses sponsored products, banners, videos, livestreams, influencers, and campaigns combining digital and physical environments. As audiences grow, advertisers from different sectors enter the market, and data and artificial intelligence become more widely used, platforms are expanding their formats and the ways they reach consumers. This shift is expected to gain further importance in the coming years. Retail media accounted for 2.3% of total digital advertising spending in Brazil in 2020. That share is projected to reach 16.3% in 2026 and 22.2% in 2030, according to consulting firm eMarketer. Industry professionals are also optimistic. Eight in ten marketing and advertising professionals expect investment in ads within e-commerce platforms to grow over the next 12 months, according to a survey by the Marketing + Media Alliance (MMA), a community of executives and companies in Latin America. The study also found that 67% of companies already invest in this type of advertising—29% extensively and 38% still on a trial basis. Another 18% are assessing opportunities, 8% intend to begin investing, and 7% are not currently interested. Conducted in May, the survey’s second edition interviewed 1,020 professionals from advertisers, agencies, communications companies, and consulting firms. “Retail media began as a performance channel—in other words, one focused on transactions,” says Fabiano Destri Lobo, MMA’s chief executive for Latin America. “Over time, many brands investing in it realized that it also helped build their brands.” The shift is expanding platforms’ role beyond the final stage of a purchase. By combining information about searches, pages visited, and previous orders, retailers can target ads not only to people looking for a particular product but also to consumers interested in a broader category. Lobo attributes part of this shift to consumers’ greater familiarity with e-commerce since the pandemic. Audiences on these platforms have also grown. Retail websites and apps reached 101.6 million unique visitors in June, equivalent to 76.4% of Brazil’s connected population, according to Comscore. Growing audiences and advertiser demand are also translating into increased investment. Spending on digital retail media rose to R$4.8 billion in 2025 from R$3.5 billion in 2024 and R$2.1 billion in 2023, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB Brasil). The calculation includes ads on websites, apps, and marketplaces but excludes advertising space sold in physical stores. Expansion, however, still faces a lack of common standards for assessing results. In the MMA survey, 43% of respondents cited the absence of standardized metrics as the main problem. Another 37% pointed to the difficulty of comparing figures reported by different platforms. The lack of standardization helps explain why, despite being fragmented across numerous platforms, Brazil’s market remains concentrated in the largest ecosystems, according to Matteo Ceurvels, eMarketer’s analyst for Latin America and Spain. Mercado Libre accounts for 69.1% of retail media advertising spending in Brazil in 2026, while Amazon has a 12.7% share, according to eMarketer. “Ideally, there would be a centralized market where a brand could purchase ads across all these platforms, view the metrics, and compare them in a more standardized way,” Ceurvels says. For that to happen, however, retailers would need to provide access to their ecosystems and share data—something they remain reluctant to do. Concentration is becoming increasingly important as advertising emerges as a significant source of revenue for e-commerce companies. According to Ceurvels, advertising revenue can equal nearly 2.5% to 3% of gross merchandise value (GMV) at some businesses. Magazine Luiza’s advertising operation, grouped under the Magalu Ads brand, recorded 55% revenue growth in 2025, according to the division’s managing director, Célia Goldstein. The company does not disclose its advertising revenue or the business’s share of the group’s total revenue, but says its digital channels receive 54 million unique consumers each month. Goldstein points to growing demand from companies that do not sell products through the marketplace, known in the industry as non-endemic advertisers. Magalu has already developed campaigns for brands including Mastercard, Hyundai, and Uber. “Retail media was created with a focus on conversion, but today it is much more than that,” Goldstein says. In a campaign launching a vehicle, for example, Hyundai used Magalu’s virtual character Lu and ads displayed within the platform. Video is another format that has gained ground. Goldstein says combining audiovisual advertising with data about consumer interests allows platforms to compete for campaigns that are not focused solely on immediate sales. Advertising has also become more important to Mercado Libre’s business. Mercado Ads revenue grew 73% in dollars in the second quarter from a year earlier. Jesus Moreno Sosa, senior vice president of Mercado Ads, says the performance reflects the platform’s ability to reach consumers when they have already demonstrated an intention to buy. “Retail media’s advantage is that it is present in an environment where the audience is already browsing with a strong intent to convert,” he says. Amazon is another example of how retail media has moved beyond the boundaries of e-commerce. The company expanded its offering to environments such as Prime Video, entered partnerships with platforms including Netflix, and advanced into audio advertising. Using data on consumer behavior, it can reach people at different points in their purchasing journeys. Artificial intelligence is expected to accelerate this shift by simplifying campaign creation and optimization. Carolina Piber, managing director of Amazon Ads in Brazil, says AI agents already help structure campaigns, guide decisions about formats and audiences, and reduce the need for complex organizational structures. “AI is democratizing access,” she says. At AliExpress, the technology selects both the audience that will receive an advertisement and the product that will occupy each available placement. According to Briza Bueno, the company’s marketing and business executive in Brazil, the selection considers the likelihood of conversion and the offer’s relevance to the consumer. AI is also used to produce images and advertising creative. Translation: Todd Harkin