Blog posts
Retail media has changed the marketing landscape faster than perhaps any megatrend before. The market’s growth has been staggering, and its definition has expanded into new areas.
As retail media has spread beyond traditional retail sectors into industries like travel, healthcare, and finance, it has gained a broader name: commerce media.
Commerce media includes many of the same features as retail media – such as audiences based on first-party data, the means and channels to reach those audiences, and the contextual relevance that makes ads meaningful to consumers.
However, unlike traditional retail media (such as FMCG-based networks), commerce media is not typically built on supplier relationships. The advertisers using these channels are often non-endemic – their products or services cannot be purchased directly from the media owner.
The second major shift is the emergence of open retail and commerce media networks. While traditional retail media networks created by large retailers have operated as closed, walled gardens, a new generation of open networks is taking shape.
An open network allows multiple retailers and commerce media players to join forces in a shared ecosystem. This gives advertisers the ability to reach consumers across all participating stores, websites, apps, and channels – including CRM and email campaigns.
These networks manage shared audience inventories and coordinate media sales across the members’ various touchpoints:
While open networks are still emerging, we at Doohlabs are aware of several in development – and we’re confident that many more are being planned.
Here’s a video of our presentation at IAB Finland’s Retail Media event in May 2025, where we spoke together with our partner Aller Media:
