Retail media was the fastest-growing ad category of the decade. Now the same playbook is spreading to travel, financial services, rideshare and hospitality. Any business with traffic and first-party data is a potential ad platform.
If your business has traffic and first-party data, you might already be sitting on a media business you have not switched on.
The hottest idea in advertising is leaking out of retail. Retail media networks, the ad businesses that supermarkets and marketplaces built on top of their own customer data, drove a huge share of ad growth this decade. US retail media spend is on track for $71 billion in 2026. Now the same model is spreading. Travel platforms, financial services, rideshare and hospitality companies are all standing up their own ad businesses, a category the industry calls commerce media.
The logic is simple and it travels. If you have an audience that shows up with intent and you have first-party data about what they do, you have something advertisers will pay to reach. A bank knows what you buy. An airline knows where you are going. That is targeting data money cannot easily replicate.
Why it matters
There are two lessons here, and which one applies depends on which side of the counter you sit on. As an advertiser, the number of places to spend is multiplying, and each new network promises closer targeting and cleaner attribution because it owns the purchase data. That is real, and it is also a fragmentation headache that makes disciplined measurement harder.
As a business with your own audience, this is a prompt. Commerce media is no longer just for giant retailers. If you have meaningful traffic and rich first-party data, there may be a revenue line hiding in your own platform.
Forecast US retail media spend in 2026, the model now spreading into travel, finance and rideshare
What to do about it
As a buyer, judge each new commerce media network on whether its data and audience genuinely match your customer, not on the pitch. Insist on transparent measurement before you commit, because closed networks grade their own homework. Keep your spending disciplined as the options multiply, since fragmentation is where budgets quietly bleed. As an owner of an audience, look honestly at whether your traffic and first-party data could support an ad or sponsorship offering. In both cases, treat first-party data as the asset it has become, because it is the thing this entire shift is built on.
Retail proved the model. The model is now everyone's. The question is whether you are buying it, building it or missing it.