The numbers

Australia's retail media market hit approximately $3 billion AUD in 2025. That looks modest next to the US ($60 billion USD) and China ($56 billion USD), but here's the kicker: Australia is growing at nearly three times the rate of the US through 2027. Like most things, Australia is punching above its weight.

By 2027, retail media is forecast to overtake total TV ad revenue in Australia. That's not a distant horizon. That's the next budget cycle.

Australia's retail media landscape

Retail media in Australia isn't emerging anymore. It's accelerating. A handful of players currently capture the lion's share of ad revenue and they're still growing hard. But the network count is expanding fast, with serious new infrastructure and first-party data entering the mix across 2025 and into 2026.

The infrastructure is here. The audiences are captive. The question now is which networks can actually prove return on ad spend at scale.

Australia's unfair advantage: loyalty data

Flybuys and Everyday Rewards have household penetration rates most international markets can only dream about. Coles' Flybuys alone has 9.9 million active members, fully integrated into Coles 360's targeting and measurement stack.

The incoming Privacy Act overhaul could make that data asset even more defensible against third-party competitors. It could also complicate off-site targeting and data partnerships. Both outcomes are live for 2026.

In-store: late to the party, making up for lost time

The US went digital-first. Sponsored products, on-site search, display banners. In-store media still accounts for less than 1% of total US retail media spend. Europe and the UK took the opposite approach, starting with the physical store.

Australia largely followed the US model — but that's changing fast. Cartology now has 20,000+ in-store POS screens active. Coles is expanding across 850-plus stores. And Bunnings explicitly launched in-store radio as a channel from day one. That's not a coincidence. That's a signal.

The industry's biggest unsolved problem

More networks means more complexity. And measurement is where it all gets messy.

IAB Australia released updated measurement guidance in late 2025. The industry knows what needs fixing. The pace of the fix will determine how fast the next investment wave unlocks.

The opportunity gap

Despite all of the above, there's still a significant gap between Australia's retail media potential and its current reality. Many retailers with genuine ambitions are sitting on the sidelines, unsure how to resource or operationalise a retail media network.

A handful of early movers are capturing a disproportionate share of brand investment while a long tail of retailers with valuable audiences and loyalty data haven't found a way to monetise them yet. The appetite is there. 85% of retailers in the IAB 2025 survey plan to expand their ad products and channels in the next twelve months. What's missing is confidence, capability, and the right partners.

The retailers who figure that out next will define the next chapter of Australian retail media. And given the pace of new entrants in 2025 alone, that chapter is already being written.