This year, the advertising industry thought tariff announcements could affect advertising growth. But they weren’t as much of a gamechanger as initially thought, at least according to WPP Media, which projects global advertising revenue will top more than $1 trillion in 2025.

A big trend in the space is called retail media, which is when a brand pays retailers to highlight their products to that retailer’s customers. WPP Media said retail media is expected to grow to over $190 billion next year.

Let’s say you want to buy some shoes online. You search, get a bunch of options. Some of them are probably sponsored. That’s retail media, said Luke Stillman at Madison and Wall, an advisory and consulting firm to the advertising industry. 

“A lot of those are showing up at the top because those brands paid the most,” he said.

He said even if consumers say they’re worried about the economy, they’re still spending. So advertisers are too. Madison and Wall forecasts that next year, digital ads will be led by retail media.

“Which we expect to grow by 16% and most of that is Amazon and Walmart and other big retailers who have launched advertising businesses,” Stillman said.

Getting customers’ attention when they are actively trying to buy something means return on this type of ad spending can be quite substantial, said Jeremy Goldman at Emarketer.

“Two-to-one or four-to-one. You know, 200% to 400% sometimes even higher,” he said.

As for retailers selling this ad opportunity, he said they can tell brands this:

“It's probably a good idea to not just sell on our website, but also to have a retail media spend,” Goldman said.

Meaning they get to charge companies twice. This year, retail media was so prevalent, that globally, “That bucket of ad revenue will actually be larger than Global TV,” said Kate Scott-Dawkins with WPP Media.

That includes traditional TV and streaming. However, retail players could potentially see visits to their sites diminish if more of the consumer purchase journey shifts to AI and chatbot-based conversations, Scott-Dawkins said.

If that happens, she said retail media could lose some of its share and gains from the last several years.