White Paper  ·  Retail Media Networks

Your store is a media opportunity. Are you ready to claim your share?

Independent grocers already own what CPG brands value most: access to high-intent customers, first-party data, and trusted customer relationships. This is the playbook for turning what you already have into revenue you can reinvest.

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Retail Media Networks: The Revenue Solution for Independent Grocers White Paper
The opportunity

A multi-billion-dollar market, now within reach of every grocer

$69B
U.S. retail media market
20%
Growth per year
38%
Of U.S. grocery sales come from independent grocers

Independent grocers operate more than 21,000 stores, giving them exactly the foot traffic and first-party data that consumer packaged goods brands are eager to reach.

Sources: eMarketer (2025), Retail Media Forecast Report Update; National Grocers Association (2026), Economic Impact Report

What's inside

A practical guide, from the imperative to the path forward

01

Understanding the Retail Media Imperative

Why retail media is reshaping grocery economics, and why your store is already a media company.

02

Choosing Your Implementation Model

The build, buy, and hybrid paths, and how to choose the one that fits your size.

03

Getting Started with Retail Media

A low-lift path to launch, without massive capital or a dedicated technology team.

04

The Instacart Enterprise Advantage

How Carrot Ads brings demand from more than 9,000 brands to your digital shelf, with full closed-loop reporting from impression to in-store purchase.

05

The Path Forward

What it takes to claim your share before brand budgets consolidate around a few retailers.

Three ways to start

Build, buy, or hybrid: choose the path that fits your business

Build

Own the entire stack

Maximum control and customization, but it carries the full burden: substantial capital, a dedicated engineering and sales team, and CPG relationships built from scratch.

Best for: large national and regional chains
Buy

Plug into a platform

The fastest, lowest-lift path. Join an established platform that already carries national advertiser demand. Setup in months, no upfront technology investment, and revenue sharing that ties cost to performance.

Best for: grocers who want to launch quickly
Hybrid

License the technology

Keep your own branded site, app, and customer relationships while a specialist powers the advertising, unifying retail media across online and in-store surfaces.

Best for: grocers with established digital properties
The proof

Grocers are already turning shelves into revenue

Rosauers Supermarkets
A 23-store operator across three banners in the Inland Northwest.
2x
Monthly monetization revenue
66%
Of ecommerce fees offset by ad revenue in year one
+11%
Sales year over year

Source: Instacart, 2026

Schnucks
A family-owned Midwest regional grocer monetizing its own site and app since 2021.
7x
Retail media revenue growth
5.7x
Return on ad spend
2.6%
Click-through rate

Source: Instacart, 2025

Results are specific to each retailer and will vary.

The Instacart Enterprise advantage

Built for independent grocery

Carrot Ads gives grocery retailers the technology to monetize their digital shelf without rebuilding their ecommerce stack. Plug it into your existing site, or build it in from day one with Storefront Pro.

  • Demand, solved. Activate advertising demand from more than 9,000 brands from day one.
  • The same technology behind Instacart's own ads ecosystem, extended to your owned site.
  • Proven for brands. CPG brand partners report an average of 25 percent incremental sales lift.
  • Revenue sharing tied to ad delivery: cost scales with performance, not with your build budget.

Average incremental sales lift based on internal Instacart tests across all brand partners over the four quarters ended September 30, 2025 (28-day lookback). Results vary.

9,000+
CPG brands ready to advertise

A built-in marketplace of advertiser demand — the hardest part of retail media to build alone.

More than 9,000 CPG brands as of Q4 2025.

The path forward

The opportunity is clear. The path is defined.

CPG brands are consolidating their retail media spend around a handful of retailers, and that window is narrowing. Download the white paper and see exactly how to get ahead of it.

Figures are drawn from the white paper, Retail Media Networks: The Revenue Solution for Independent Grocers. Full sources inside.