Retail media spend to surpass £1bn in the UK in 2025

Advertisers’ investment in on and off-site retail media is set to surpass £1bn in the UK next year - excluding spend on Amazon - according to new data from IAB UK. The forecast underscores the buoyant health of the market as advertisers look to leverage the vast wealth of first-party data retailers can offer. 

Adding Amazon to the mix, retail media spend is on track to break through the £7bn mark in 2028. To put the scale and rate of that growth in context, spend on social display in the UK currently stands at £7.5bn. 

These forecasts are the result of joint analysis of spend data and trends by IAB UK and IAB Europe, encompassing both on and off-site retail media investment. The data does not include in-store spend as more work is needed to standardise what should be defined as digital ad spend in this category.

Announcing the news at Retail Media Upfronts 2024, IAB UK’s CMO James Chandler described the projected growth of the category as incredibly exciting: “As retail media becomes increasingly established, we’re gaining a clearer picture of the trajectory of the UK market - which is the biggest in Europe and among the fastest growing, fuelled by the unique and diverse advertiser opportunities it has to offer. It’s also really important that we have worked with IAB Europe to reach these figures. We’re already aligned on definitions and standards across retail media markets, so extending that cohesion to measurement makes a huge amount of sense.”

The new forecasts build on IAB UK’s Digital Adspend – which uses submitted data to measure current on-site spend levels among UK-based retailers – in order to gain a broader and future-facing view of the UK retail media market.