ShopTalk is where you go to take the temperature of retail each year. Our team was on the ground in Las Vegas, and what we heard confirmed something we’ve been watching closely. Retail media is growing fast and the market is no longer trying to prove it matters. It’s being forced to prove it works.

The Space Is Expanding and Getting Crowded

The sheer number of companies entering the retail media space was hard to miss. Between new RMNs, new platforms, and new partnerships, the category is attracting real investment and serious attention. That growth is a signal the market has validated the opportunity.

But growth at this pace has a cost. The market still has a “wild west” quality to it. Value propositions vary wildly, approaches are fragmented, and for brands and agencies trying to evaluate options, the noise level is high. The proliferation of players has made it harder, not easier, to identify where real performance lives.

We think that’s actually an opportunity. Markets this noisy tend to reward clarity: clear data, clear measurement, clear outcomes. The platforms that can deliver on that will separate themselves quickly.

Transparency Is the Gap Nobody Wants to Talk About

We heard a consistent tension around the gap between what RMNs promise and what they can actually prove. This surfaced as reporting inconsistencies, measurement methodologies that vary platform to platform, and a need for standardization. All of these factors make it genuinely difficult for brands to compare performance across their media mix.

Transparency isn’t a nice-to-have in a market this competitive, it’s the thing that builds trust over time. The RMNs that figure this out first will earn longer relationships and bigger budgets. The ones that don’t will get consolidated out.

At Consumable, we operate on a fully transparent and attributable model. That’s been a deliberate choice, and ShopTalk reinforced why it matters. When brands can see exactly what’s happening with their spend, where it’s going, what it’s producing, and how it ties to verified outcomes, the conversation shifts from justification to optimization.

Offsite Is the New Frontier and Audio Is in the Middle of It

The appetite for offsite extensions continues to be real and consistent, and increasingly brands are looking beyond on-site placements and sponsored search. They want to reach shoppers earlier in the journey, in the moments before intent becomes explicit, and connect that influence to verified purchase outcomes.

Much of the conversation around innovation in retail media is centered on CTV and digital formats. Shoppable inventory, high-attention environments, and formats that do more than serve an impression. That’s exactly where audio can fit when infrastructure for signals and measurement are in place.

Audio has historically been treated as a reach channel that’s broad, unmeasurable, and hard to tie to outcomes. What’s changing is the infrastructure underneath it. With the right identity and measurement framework in place, audio can reach shoppers across the full consumer journey, connecting offsite influence to in-store action and tying exposure directly to real purchase behavior.

The demand is there. The question now is execution, demonstrating the value clearly and consistently to the brands and agencies evaluating their next move in retail media.

What It Means Going Forward

Retail media is entering a more accountable phase. The market has matured to the point where brands have meaningful choice, and they are using that leverage to demand clearer measurement, greater transparency, and formats that can demonstrate their role in driving outcomes.

For audio, this creates a meaningful opportunity. The infrastructure required to support identity, targeting, and closed-loop measurement is now in place. The demand for offsite solutions is already established.

The focus now shifts to execution. The platforms that can demonstrate value clearly, operate with consistent measurement frameworks, and integrate seamlessly into broader retail media strategies will be the ones that capture that demand.

Based on what we heard at ShopTalk, that transition is already underway, and the window to define what effective offsite retail media looks like is moving quickly.