Retail and commerce media budgets are growing, but advertisers are losing patience with what it takes to use them.
Eighty-five percent of advertisers plan to increase spending on retail and commerce media networks over the next year, according to “The 2026 Commerce Media Investment Index” from GrowthLoop and Ascend2. At the same time, 86% say slow audience fulfillment would make them reduce spend or leave a partner.
The budget opportunity is real, but so is the friction. Advertisers want faster audience delivery, more useful audience options, better access to their own first-party data, and measurement they can use before the next campaign is already underway.
Speed is turning into a buying criterion
Half of advertisers wait four days or longer for a custom audience segment, and 15% wait at least a week. Only 11% get one the same day.
That delay matters when teams are running campaigns across several networks. Ninety percent of respondents work with at least two retail or commerce media partners, and 10% work with seven or more.
A network can have good inventory and still lose spend if campaigns take too long to launch.
The survey found 92% would be more likely to increase spend with a partner that delivers audiences faster, and 85% would pay a premium for same-day fulfillment. Another 94% said self-service audience-building tools would make them more likely to spend more.
That puts audience operations directly into the budget conversation.
Audience depth now weighs almost as much as price
Pricing and fees ranked as a top partner-selection factor for 47% of respondents. Audience targeting, reach, and segmentation depth came in at 46%. Ease of campaign setup and activation followed at 42%.
That said, advertisers really, really want more audience options. Ninety-five percent said access to more segments would make them more likely to increase spend. Advertisers with access to 100 or more active segments were more than five times as likely to plan spending increases of 25% or more than those with fewer than 25 segments (32% versus 6%).
Reach and scale ranked first among audience considerations at 47%, followed by accuracy at 46%. Advertisers also valued the ability to forecast audience size, combine network data with their own first-party data, and activate the same audience across on-site and off-site channels.
First-party data use rises with investment
Advertisers also want to bring more of their customer data into media network campaigns.
Nearly one-third rank first-party data integration as one of their most important partner-selection criteria, and 30% put it among their top audience capabilities. When customer-list suppression is available, three-quarters of those with access use it.
Heavier users rely more on those controls. Among advertisers allocating at least 30% of their digital ad budgets to retail or commerce media, 78% use customer suppression, compared with 58% of lower-investment advertisers.
Measurement is still breaking the feedback loop
Measurement is still the weak point of commerce media, but it’s no longer about comparing different networks.
Nearly half of advertisers wait more than a week for post-campaign performance data, while only 8% get it the same day. Just 32% say they can consistently use campaign results to improve future audience targeting.
If the results arrive after the next campaign is already planned, the feedback loop is broken.
Measurement gaps are already affecting budgets. Thirty-two percent said difficulty proving ROI led them to reduce, pause, or reconsider investment, while 30% cited measurement and attribution gaps. Executives were more likely than non-executives to cite measurement problems as a reason to pull back, 42% versus 24%.
Confidence in incrementality is limited too. Only 40% said they were very confident in the incrementality measurement provided by networks. However, those with high confidence reported higher investment and stronger perceived ROI.
Even so, retail and commerce media’s reach makes it impossible for advertisers to ignore. Seventy-three percent allocate at least 15% of their digital ad budgets to these networks, and 85% plan to spend more.
The harder part is execution. How long does it take to build and launch the audience? How long before the results come back in a form the team can use?
Those questions sound operational because they are. They’re also budget questions.
The report is available here. (Registration required)
