Retail Digital Marketing Strategies, Trends, and Tips

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), retail is, at its core, about delivering “the right product at the right price to the right customer.” But, whether it’s changing consumer demographics or the rise of social commerce, retail is constantly evolving, and connecting with the right customers at the right time and place has never been more difficult.

As such, retail marketers need to adapt, leveraging data-driven digital marketing strategies to reach consumers and help their brands stay ahead of the curve.

Read on to learn the trends impacting digital marketing in retail and the programmatic tips and strategies that will help your business succeed in 2025 and beyond.

The Changing Retail Marketing Landscape

Despite the first half of the decade ushering in economic uncertainty, retail sales growth is expected to remain consistent for the foreseeable future. US retail sales will reach $7.41 trillion USD in 2024 and the US retail market is projected to have an annual growth rate between 2.9% and 3.1% through 2028—close to the pre-pandemic average of 3.6% per year.

The growth rate for e-commerce is even stronger, with online sales projected to increase from 7% to 9%, reaching nearly $1.5 trillion USD in 2024. Annually, EMARKETER forecasts high-single-digit online sales growth, with e-commerce accounting for 20% of total US retail sales by 2028.

According to NRF, much of e-commerce’s growth is due to multi-channel sales, which rely heavily on physical locations to fulfill orders and enhance customer convenience, with 70% of retail sales still occurring in person.

As a result, despite e-commerce’s continued growth, retailers and brands need to connect with customers in multiple locations—namely, online, in-app, and in-store—to drive sales.

5 Retail Digital Marketing Trends to Watch

Keeping an eye on current trends can inform many aspects of your retail digital marketing strategy, from which channels and formats to advertise with to who you should target with your campaigns. 

Here are 5 trends to keep in mind when planning your retail digital marketing strategy: 

1. Mobile Commerce Continues to Rise 

As consumers spend more time on their smartphones and mobile devices, mobile commerce (aka m-commerce) has become one of the most popular methods for purchasing products online, with m-commerce projected to account for two-thirds of net online sales growth between 2024 and 2028. (In 2028, it’s projected that 94% of m-commerce sales will occur on smartphones.) As a result, retail marketers should prioritize mobile-friendly channels when advertising to consumers. 

2. Social Shopping Grows in Popularity 

Social commerce allows customers to shop directly through their favourite social media platforms. Social shopping is particularly popular among younger customers, with a 2024 survey finding that 55% of Gen Z consumers in the US reported purchasing through a social media platform in the previous six months. As social media’s influence continues to rise, US social commerce sales are expected to more than double by 2028, exceeding $141 billion USD.

3. Personalization Becomes the New Norm 

Brands are increasingly using 1st-party data collected from customer loyalty programs, in-store and online purchases, and email sign-ups to deliver more personalized ads and relevant promotions to consumers, resulting in better engagement, higher sales, and stronger brand loyalty. In fact, research from McKinsey & Company found that companies that do personalization well see 40% more revenue than companies that are only average at it.

4. Retail Media Networks Open the Doors for Mid-Market Brands

For brands that don’t have access to an extensive amount of 1st-party data, retail media networks (RMNs) allow brands to leverage a retailer’s proprietary customer data, ad inventory, and strategic partnerships to reach a wider audience and target customers closer to the point of purchase. With 64% of execs at US retailers telling Deloitte they planned to implement an RMN by the end of 2024, it’s never been easier for mid-market brands to compete with larger companies and reach the right customer in the right place at the right time—whether that’s in-store, online, or where they’re streaming content.

5. Emerging Technology is Improving the Customer Experience 

Brands are finding new ways to make online shopping more seamless for customers. With more people shopping online, customers have fewer in-person touchpoints with products, which makes discovery more challenging. That’s why many brands in the retail industry are investing in emerging technology, like augmented reality (AR) and virtual “try before you buy” experiences. This helps customers better engage with products online and reduces the barrier to purchase, especially for younger shoppers, with millennials and Gen Zers two to three times more likely to use emerging media like AR, VR, and even online live streams to learn about products before purchasing.  

Drive Results With These Retail Digital Marketing Strategies

With these emerging trends in mind, let’s look at a few ways retail marketers can better connect with customers. Here are 7 retail digital marketing strategies to consider when planning your next retail marketing campaign:

1. Use a Cross-Channel Marketing Strategy to Create a Seamless Customer Experience

People are spending more time on digital channels than ever before, especially on mobile devices. Update your retail advertising strategies to incorporate mobile-friendly programmatic channels like video and audio as part of a cross-channel marketing strategy to boost brand awareness and reach new customers. Retarget off of video completion rates (VCR) or listen completion rates (LCR) with highly engaging channels, such as native and display, to strengthen your branding efforts while keeping costs low. 

2. Include Social Channels as Part of Your Retargeting Strategy 

In recent years, social commerce has gained traction by guiding shoppers from discovery to purchase. To reach consumers who are actively using social channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, start by using programmatic channels like native, display, and video to capture customers’ attention and drive them to your website. Then, use social retargeting as part of a retargeting strategy to target customers on their favourite social media platforms and drive them further down the funnel towards a conversion.

3. Leverage RMNs to Reach Customers Throughout the Funnel

Although they’ve historically been used as a lower-funnel tactic to reach prospective customers when they’re in the buying mindset and directly at the point of purchase, RMNs are increasingly being used by both endemic and non-endemic brands to connect with consumers throughout the entire buying journey.

With off-site retail media—like display ads on 3rd-party websites, digital signage, and CTV—accounting for 18.5% of all US retail media ad spend in 2024 and only increasing, mid-market brands have more opportunities than ever to reach consumers outside of traditional retail channels and engage them throughout the buying journey.

4. Try Dynamic Retargeting to Reach Cart Abandoners and Mid-to-Lower-Funnel Customers

Unlike standard retargeting, which uses generic messaging to sway customers, dynamic retargeting leverages data captured from browsing behaviour, abandoned carts, or previously viewed product pages to automatically tailor ads to customers based on the specific products or content a user is interested in. 

For example, if a shopper browses for a particular pair of jeans on an e-commerce site but doesn’t complete a purchase, a retailer could use dynamic retargeting to target ads promoting that same pair of jeans or similar items across native, display, and other programmatic channels.

5. Reach the Right Customer With Contextual Targeting

Contextual targeting places ads on websites or apps based on the content viewed by a potential customer rather than relying on a user’s browsing history or personal data. It uses keywords, topics, and other contextual signals to ensure that ads appear alongside relevant content, increasing the likelihood of user engagement and, ultimately, a conversion.

For example, a retailer could use StackAdapt’s Page Context AI to input a list of words and in-context phrases related to the product they’re promoting—like “summer BBQ essentials,” “sustainable clothing,” or “men’s sneakers”—and place ads on web pages that are contextually relevant and more likely to convert.

6. Use a Brand Lift Study to Gauge Brand Awareness and Perception 

Recent retail trends show that brand loyalty is shifting, with many consumers increasingly willing to leave legacy brands behind and try new products. To navigate this change, it’s important to go beyond basic metrics like impressions and dive deeper into consumer insights to fully understand the impact of your retail marketing campaigns.

Using a brand lift study, you can accurately measure how your ads influence consumer awareness and perception, providing insights into how people feel about your brand after seeing your campaign.

For example, Add3Connect used StackAdapt’s in-platform brand lift solution to measure ad and brand recall for their client, Nuun, and found that their CTV ads significantly increased brand awareness, ultimately justifying their ad spend. 

7. Incorporate a Footfall Attribution Study to Measure the Offline Impact of Your Campaigns

It’s more important than ever to understand how your digital campaigns are impacting in-store sales.

Footfall attribution (also known as foot traffic attribution) is a method used to connect impressions to actual store visits, helping you understand how your digital ads are contributing to increased foot traffic at brick and mortar locations.

Use foot traffic attribution to uncover store visitation patterns, assess the incremental impact of your campaigns, and measure the cost per store visit.

The Future of Retail Advertising

As consumer expectations and technology continues to evolve, retail marketers need to adapt their digital marketing strategies to stay competitive.

Programmatic advertising provides a scalable and efficient way to reach the right shoppers, helping drive foot traffic and sales for your brand. 

Request a demo to learn more.