Deals & Moves

Kroger's retail media business, Kroger Precision Marketing, announced it reached $1.3 billion in annual advertising revenue. The network expanded its closed-loop measurement capabilities and launched new video advertising products across Kroger's digital properties. Growth was driven by increased CPG advertiser spend and expansion of off-site advertising through partnerships.

Roku launched Roku Ads Manager, a self-serve advertising platform that enables small and medium-sized businesses to create and manage connected TV campaigns. The platform provides access to Roku's 70+ million active accounts with simplified campaign setup and measurement tools. This democratizes access to CTV advertising previously available only to larger advertisers.

DoorDash officially launched DoorDash Advertising, a self-serve ad platform enabling restaurants and CPG brands to promote products through sponsored listings. The platform leverages DoorDash's first-party transaction data across 32 million users. Initial products include sponsored search placements and display ads within the DoorDash marketplace.

Target rebranded its advertising business from Roundel to Target Media Network and announced major expansion of its retail media capabilities. The rebrand includes new off-site advertising products, enhanced measurement tools, and programmatic access through partnerships with major DSPs. Target Media Network serves over 2,000 advertisers with access to Target's 100+ million guests.

The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit to block the proposed $24.6 billion merger between Albertsons and Kroger, citing antitrust concerns. The merger would have created the largest retail media network combining Albertsons Media Collective and Kroger Precision Marketing with nearly $3 billion in combined advertising revenue. The FTC raised concerns about reduced competition in both grocery retail and advertising markets.

Spotify launched Spotify Advertising Marketplace, a programmatic platform enabling real-time bidding for audio ad inventory across its 500+ million users. The platform integrates with major DSPs and provides advanced targeting using Spotify's first-party listening data. This launch represents Spotify's major push into programmatic audio advertising beyond its self-serve Spotify Ad Studio.

CVS Health launched CVS Media Exchange, a retail media network leveraging its pharmacy and healthcare data across 100 million customers. The platform offers sponsored product ads, display advertising, and healthcare-specific targeting capabilities. This marks the expansion of retail media into the healthcare vertical with unique compliance and privacy considerations.

Uber announced its advertising business surpassed $1 billion in annual revenue, driven by sponsored listings, display ads, and journey ads across Uber and Uber Eats platforms. The advertising division grew over 80% year-over-year with over 700,000 active advertisers. This milestone establishes Uber as a significant player in the mobility and delivery advertising space.

Lyft officially launched Lyft Ads Platform, enabling brands to reach riders through in-app and in-ride advertising formats including sponsored locations and display ads. The platform leverages Lyft's first-party data on 20+ million active riders and their travel patterns. This launch positions Lyft to compete with Uber's advertising business in the mobility advertising space.

DoorDash acquired Bbot, a restaurant ordering and marketing platform, for approximately $150 million to enhance its advertising technology for restaurant partners. Bbot's technology enables restaurants to manage their own ordering channels and customer data, complementing DoorDash's advertising platform. The acquisition strengthens DoorDash's position in restaurant technology and advertising services.

TikTok officially launched TikTok Shop in the United States, integrating e-commerce directly into the social media platform with shoppable video ads and live shopping features. The launch created a new social commerce advertising channel combining content, community, and transactions in one platform.

Marketing platform Skai secured strategic investment from Sequoia Capital to expand its omnichannel advertising platform capabilities across retail media, paid search, and social. The investment supports Skai's evolution from search marketing specialist to comprehensive commerce media platform.

Amazon expanded Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), its clean room solution, to all advertisers globally, enabling privacy-safe analysis of advertising campaign performance across Amazon properties. AMC allows advertisers to analyze pseudonymized signals across Amazon's advertising and shopping data to optimize campaigns without accessing individual-level data.

Publicis Groupe acquired Profitero, a leading e-commerce analytics platform, to strengthen its retail media and commerce capabilities within Publicis Commerce. The acquisition provides Publicis clients with enhanced e-commerce insights and optimization tools across retail media networks.

Privacy-focused browser Brave launched Brave Search Ads, introducing search advertising that doesn't track users or build profiles. The ads are matched to search queries locally on the user's device, representing a new privacy-preserving approach to search advertising that challenges Google's model.

Snap announced plans to reduce its workforce by 20% and restructure its advertising business amid declining revenue growth and increased competition from TikTok. The restructuring included consolidating ad products and refocusing on direct response advertising and augmented reality ad formats.

IAB Tech Lab released the Global Privacy Platform (GPP) specification, creating a unified framework for managing user privacy preferences across different regional privacy regulations. GPP consolidates multiple consent frameworks (TCF, CCPA, etc.) into a single technical standard for the AdTech industry.

Snowflake launched Media Data Cloud, a specialized offering for advertising and media companies to manage, activate, and collaborate on data. The platform enables clean room capabilities, identity resolution, and data collaboration between advertisers, publishers, and platforms without moving data.

Walmart announced plans to acquire TV manufacturer Vizio for $2.3 billion to significantly expand its advertising capabilities through Vizio's SmartCast operating system and ad platform. The acquisition gives Walmart access to Vizio's 18 million active accounts and robust first-party viewership data, positioning the retailer to compete more aggressively in the connected TV advertising space.

AI search engine Perplexity announced the launch of its advertising program, introducing sponsored follow-up questions and paid media formats within its AI-generated answers. This represents the first major monetization effort for an AI-powered search platform, potentially signaling a new category of advertising inventory as AI search challenges traditional search engines.

Albertsons Companies launched Albertsons Media Collective, its unified retail media network spanning its portfolio of grocery banners including Safeway, Vons, and Jewel-Osco. The platform offers on-site, off-site, and in-store advertising capabilities powered by first-party purchase data from 35 million loyalty members.

Instacart went public on Nasdaq with advertising highlighted as a key growth driver, with its advertising business generating $740 million in revenue in 2022. The company's retail media platform, Instacart Ads, has become a crucial monetization channel, demonstrating the value of first-party commerce data in the AdTech ecosystem.

Yahoo acquired the technology and team behind Artifact, the AI-powered news aggregation app founded by Instagram co-founders. Yahoo plans to integrate Artifact's AI-driven personalization technology into its content platform to enhance user engagement and advertising targeting capabilities.

Snapchat introduced Sponsored Snaps, a new full-screen advertising format that appears in users' main Chat tab alongside messages from friends. This marks Snap's most aggressive advertising placement to date, inserting promotional content directly into the messaging experience to drive higher engagement and revenue.