Product News | October 11, 2021

In-store vs. online retail media: How each one impacts the consumer shopping experience

There’s been a lot of chatter about Amazon’s ad-heavy digital storefront in the past few months, some of it somewhat negative. While the e-commerce giant has historically been praised for being customer-centric, thanks in large part to its relevance and review-based product search rankings, things seem to be changing. If you try searching for a product on Amazon these days, the first page of search results will typically comprise nine sponsored listings, according to a study conducted by data firm Profitero – double the number of ads used by Walmart or Target.

It appears that the company’s fanatical focus on advertising has come at the expense of the consumer’s online shopping experience; now, if you want to make a worthwhile purchase, you’ll have to invest extra time and energy to evaluate brands and avoid potential traps. But as online retail media is facing mounting backlash, many advertisers are realizing that in-store retail media offers similar data-backed benefits—in addition to unique advantages all its own—without negatively impacting the consumer shopping experience.

The rise of retail media: How Amazon is reshaping the advertising industry

Following in the footsteps of search and social as digital advertising’s third big wave, retail media has already established itself as a force to be reckoned with. A recent report by GroupM found that retail media already represents 10.7% of global ad spend and forecasts that this figure will grow 60% by 2027. Built on a foundation of valuable first-party purchase data, contextually relevant ad experiences, and closed-loop reporting, retail media gives consumer brands powerful new ways to reach shoppers in the environments where their customers are buying. Amazon is at the forefront of this trend; since launching its retail media network in 2012, it’s become the US’s third-largest digital ad platform, trailing only Google and Facebook. Today, retailers like Walmart, Target, and Sephora are following Amazon’s lead by trying to build a marketing business on the back of their existing sales platform.

The rise of retail media has been particularly prominent in the US, where eMarketer estimates advertisers are on track to spend more than $37 billion on retail media networks this year, an increase of about a fifth from 2021. The same report found that while social media currently attracts more ad dollars (forecasting an annual haul of $65 billion), retail media is set to grow more than five times faster in 2022. Part of this growth can be attributed to the fact that many brands are shifting ad dollars they’d previously been spending with Facebook and other online media platforms to retailers—likely due to the fact retail media advertising stands invulnerable against the demise of third-party cookies, as well as increased scepticism regarding the efficacy of digital ads. According to the Financial Times, advertisers added $9.5 billion to Amazon’s global revenue in the third quarter of 2022, while ad revenues at Meta fell 3.7% during the same period.

The impact of putting advertisers ahead of users

While Amazon’s focus on ad tech has certainly been making its shareholders happy—in 2021, the company collected $31 billion from ad sales alone—some industry analysts contend that it has come at the expense of customer-focused recommendations, personalization, and discovery. Many of the sponsored posts showing up in search results are so subtle they look like organic search results. And even when the sponsored posts showing up in search results contain a tiny disclaimer label, these kinds of ads can be misleading because they fill up spaces people assume to contain trustworthy, independent information. Many other online marketplaces and retailer apps are following suit. The result is that retail media advertising is now, in many cases, more akin to dramatically altering shelf placement for specific people than a way to inform and delight consumers or prioritize their shopping experience.

It’s not just consumers who are starting to question online retail media’s resulting impact. Marketers are increasingly asking retailers to prove how much value is actually added by such advertising—especially since it’s not unusual for them to pay at least ten times more for slots on retail media networks than they would for programmatically-sold online ads. Although the returns can ultimately be higher, one limitation of online retail media compared to online ads on the open web is that it’s easy for consumers to shop around to different retailers; there’s little friction standing in the way of a person seeing an ad in one online store and immediately hopping elsewhere to make a purchase. This means that even though online retail media has the potential to generate in-depth performance metrics for advertisers, the ability to track which ads lead to purchases can, in practice, prove to be more difficult than initially thought.

But the online space is only one of the arenas worthy of attention for retail media advertising; retailers are also finding ever more creative ways to turn their physical properties into space they can sell to marketers. Examples of digitized retail media placements inside brick-and-mortar stores include smart screens near the entrance, video displays on shopping carts, and digital retail end cap displays. By incorporating in-store digital media, retailers are able to give their partner brands access to customers close to the point of purchase, whether a customer is shopping on their website or inside one of their physical locations.

The advantages of in-store retail media vs. online retail media

To clarify, advertising, particularly retail media, isn’t necessarily bad. Done the right way, retail media can inform customers about new products and help new businesses get a foot in the door. In particular, in-store retail media has managed to avoid many of the drawbacks outlined above while offering the data- and placement-based benefits that attracted advertisers to retail media in the first place—including access to first-party shopper data, improved campaign targeting, and real-time reporting.

Aside from avoiding the negatives, in-store digital retail media offers some distinct advantages over online retail media for advertisers looking for new and effective ways to connect with their customers. Unlike online, the consumer is seeing the ad in a specific physical environment, and often the advertised product is already right in front of them. This enables brands to reach people who are ready to buy now and are in an environment that inherently introduces more friction to the price comparison process. Online, a different site is just a click away. In the real world, at best, consumers face a long walk to get to another store that may offer a slightly better price on whatever they want to buy.

In-store retail media also allows advertisers to connect with a larger audience since there are simply more people who shop in physical stores than online. While consumers relied more on e-commerce since the start of the pandemic, The NPD Group reported that 2022 was the first year since COVID that consumers expected to make more of their holiday purchases in-store (46%) than online (45%). And the return to brick-and-mortar stores is a trend that extends beyond holiday shopping; according to McKinsey, 20% of consumers say they are now doing all of their shopping in-store, while only 5% shop exclusively online.

And while online retail media ultimately winds up making the consumer experience worse—with online ad placements going to the highest bidder instead of delivering search results based on relevance—in-store retail media is still based on improving the in-person shopping experience. Retail media advertising in physical stores is ultimately only as disruptive as a consumer wants; the inventory displayed on the shelf is the same regardless of whether someone saw an ad or interacted with its corresponding QR code. At the same time, digital in-store signage opens up new storytelling possibilities through the use of dynamic content, offering brands unique opportunities to engage with customers and leave a lasting impression.

In short, in-store retail media offers the best of both worlds: it’s a way for retailers to generate additional revenue from brands and a method of delivering a more information-rich and relevant in-store experience.

Are you missing the most valuable piece of your retail media network marketing strategy?

Check out our eBook to learn key aspects every retailer should look for when adding in-store digital marketing to their retail media network.

Product News | October 11, 2021

What’s new in the Broadsign Platform: Sophisticated targeting, creative management and UI improvements

Spring has finally sprung, which means fresh air, greenery, and, most importantly, fresh updates to the Broadsign Platform. This season, we are bringing you sophisticated targeting tools, streamlined creative management, and major UI improvements to make the campaign planning and management process for directly-sold campaigns as seamless as possible for campaign planners.

Why does this matter? While the activation process for digital out-of-home (DOOH) may only require a couple of minutes, the campaign planning and management process often requires much more time. Discovering available and relevant inventory, collecting data to prove the medium’s effectiveness in meeting campaign goals, and managing campaign creatives are all time-consuming tasks.

The new spring updates introduce a new level of automation that not only reduces the time and complexities of getting DOOH campaigns out the door but also helps make out-of-home (OOH) a competitive and attractive medium for buyers. Let’s dive in!

Sophisticated targeting tools that find the best inventory

Granular targeting shouldn’t be exclusive to programmatic. That’s why last year, we introduced targeting tools for directly sold campaigns executed through the Broadsign Platform, giving campaign planners the same flexibility and comprehensive targeting capabilities as online and programmatic media buyers.

The targeting tools included the ability to filter your inventory by location and key points of interest (POIs), enabling campaign planners to find the most relevant inventory for each campaign at the click of a button. An intuitive map view was also introduced, allowing you to better visualize your inventory with quick filtering options by area, support for bulk location uploads, and setting radius parameters.

This year, we’re introducing two powerful targeting upgrades for directly sold campaigns: demographics and criteria targeting. With demographics targeting, you can filter inventory by attributes like age, gender, or occupation to find the screens that will maximize campaign impact. We’ve also enhanced criteria targeting, giving you more granular control over inclusion and exclusion rules. For example, when building a proposal for an alcohol brand, you can now quickly exclude screens that don’t allow alcohol ads from your inventory search in just a few clicks.

These new additions to the Broadsign Platform not only reduce the manual work required for inventory discovery but also give your team the opportunity to be a more strategic partner to buyers. We’re also excited to share that these enhanced targeting capabilities are now available to Broadsign customers worldwide!

Simplified creative management and centralized campaign planning

Media owners juggle multiple campaigns and creatives at the same time, and without the right tools, the creative management process can become complex and stressful for your teams. Last year, we released our in-platform creative management tools, which allowed you to create, edit, manage, and assign campaign creatives with ease. On top of that, we also made it possible for you to push your campaigns live through the Broadsign Platform, eliminating the need to go through Broadsign’s desktop tools.

In this latest update to the Broadsign Platform, we’re introducing creative scheduling. You’ll now be able to apply multiple scheduling options to your creatives, making it easier than ever to deliver the right message at the right time. You can also target your content by time of day or event, making it easier than ever to adapt your messaging to dayparts or changing campaign goals. Finally, you can update your creatives in real-time, allowing you to plan and deliver up to 55% of your campaigns in one unified workflow directly in-platform.

Additional management tools for an improved user experience

Along with comprehensive creative management and targeting tools for directly-sold campaigns, additional tools and UI enhancements have been added to improve the usability and user experience of the Broadsign Platform:

Inventory package accessibility

Access inventory packages effortlessly through the platform’s updated navigation bar, enhancing efficiency and ease of use.

Centralized settings management

Administrators can now adjust and manage all necessary settings for digital and static inventory, user management, and more directly within the platform’s web-based UI through a centralized hub for control and configuration.

Campaign monitoring enhancements

With the newly implemented progress indicator, real-time monitoring of campaign pacing is now possible, giving immediate insight into campaign performance. This allows for quick adjustments to be made, as needed, to meet campaign goals effectively.

Search functionality and filters

An improved search mechanism, complemented by additional filters like campaign, client or contract names, enables quicker and more accurate campaign retrieval, saving time and improving workflow.

Line item list

You can now access a list of all line items directly through the navigation bar. Operations teams now have a more precise and comprehensive view of all bookings made on your network.

Dashboard customization

Tailor the platform’s dashboard to meet individual needs, ensuring that the most relevant and important information is always front and center.

Interested in testing out these new features? Book a demo today

Product News | October 11, 2021

How to integrate in-store digital signage into your retail media network

If your retail media network (RMN) is thriving online but underutilized in-store, you’re not alone, and there’s untapped value waiting on the sales floor. While many retailers have monetized their websites and apps, in-store signage often remains overlooked and disconnected from broader retail media efforts.

Forward-thinking retailers are closing the gap by deploying in-store screens or connecting existing ones to their broader retail media ecosystem using specialized digital signage software. From investing in new displays to syncing with data systems, workflows, and programmatic platforms, they’re transforming stores into dynamic, measurable environments that complete the omnichannel shopper journey.

The benefits go far beyond operational efficiency. As of 2025, more than 200 RMNs operate globally, each with its own formats, technologies, and measurement frameworks. This fragmentation has become a major challenge, with marketers calling for more standardization to unlock the next wave of retail media investment. Integrating in-store signage into a cohesive strategy helps retailers close the loop—connecting the full shopper journey, enabling comprehensive measurement, and driving long-term growth for both themselves and their brand partners.

Whether your goal is to enhance in-store advertising, maximize ROI on existing hardware, or deliver smarter, data-driven shopper experiences, this roadmap will help you turn screens into a strategic cornerstone of your retail media network.

Why digital signage is critical to your retail media strategy

Despite the rise of e-commerce, 80% of purchases still happen in-store, making the physical store a high-impact, yet often underutilized, media environment. Still, many RMNs prioritize digital channels like websites, apps, and email, overlooking the opportunity to bring that same power to the sales floor.

Digital signage bridges the gap between digital media and in-person purchase moments. It turns your store into a full-funnel, monetizable channel that enhances, not competes with, your broader retail media strategy. Here’s how:

Connects online precision to in-store decisions: Bring the targeting and flexibility of digital media into the physical store, where buying decisions are made, with dynamic, contextually relevant content—brand campaigns, personalized promos, seasonal messaging—delivered right where buying decisions happen.
Monetizes real-world traffic: Turn foot traffic into a scalable revenue stream by offering brand partners premium placements on high-visibility screens, targeted by location, time, or context—especially impactful during add-to-cart moments.
Delivers measurable, flexible performance: Modern digital signage platforms integrate with your data and ad tech stack, enabling real-time scheduling, updates, and reporting. Track key metrics—product engagement, sales lift, dwell time—and connect in-store exposure to online behaviour.
Enhances the shopper experience: Effective signage supports the customer journey, not disrupts it. From back-in-stock alerts to curated promotions, digital displays make in-person shopping more engaging, relevant, and responsive.
Powers your omnichannel strategy: Signage closes the loop between discovery and conversion, syncing messaging across email, mobile, online ads, and in-store screens so shoppers experience a consistent, connected journey.

Integrating digital signage into a unified retail media strategy

Whether you’re building from scratch or integrating existing screens into your retail media stack, you need to lay the right foundation. That means designing a signage strategy built for scale, content relevance, and future monetization — and then connecting it to the data, workflows, and systems that power your RMN.

As Jonathan Franco, Broadsign’s Global Head of Retail Media, notes in a recent piece on bridging lessons from digital out-of-home (DOOH) to in-store media: “The OOH market has taught us that success isn’t just about having screens in impactful locations; it’s about playing the right content in the right place at the right time.”

In other words, a successful signage strategy goes beyond high-traffic ad placements or hardware specs. It’s about creating strategic touchpoints that support the full shopper journey and integrate seamlessly with your broader digital media operations.

Here’s how to bring it all together:

1. Plan your screen zones with both placement and content in mind

Think like a media planner, not just a merchandiser. Whether you’re starting from scratch or expanding an existing setup, begin by aligning screen placement with key shopper moments:

Entrances: High-impact campaigns and branded takeovers
Main aisles: Seasonal themes or product spotlights
Promo zones & end caps: Shoppable content, limited-time offers
Checkout areas: Loyalty messaging, app signups, basket-building prompts
Specialty departments (e.g., pharmacy, bakery, butcher): Context-specific content like curated product picks, pairing suggestions, or department-specific promos

Once placement is mapped, define content zones and use cases that bring structure and scalability to your network:

Utility-first content like wayfinding, back-in-stock updates, and localized promos
Retailer-owned storytelling through seasonal campaigns or private label features
Brand-sponsored media with paid placements, co-branded messages, and monetizable ad space

Pro tip: Map screen zones based on foot traffic, dwell time, and product affinity to guide content planning and ad pricing. This helps ensure a coherent in-store experience while maximizing the media value of each screen.

2. Keep it flexible and connected

Retail moves fast — and so should your signage. Choose a retail digital signage platform that’s not just flexible but also built to integrate with your broader retail media stack. In particular, look for solutions that support:

Triggered content and dynamic scheduling based on store data or external signals
Programmatic ad delivery and audience targeting (via DSP/SSP integrations)
Creative versioning and campaign automation for faster go-to-market execution
Workflow integration across your retail media stack to ensure everything runs smoothly, from planning to reporting

The more your signage tools sync with your RMN systems, the easier it is to deliver value to brand partners and internal stakeholders alike.

3. Align signage with your cross-channel media strategy

The same shopper might see your ad on social media, browse your website, and visit your store—all in a single day. To keep pace, your content and media offerings should reflect a cohesive journey. When deployed strategically, in-store screens become physical extensions of your digital media plan — not standalone inventory.

For marketers, that means:

Repurposing assets from other RMN channels (e.g. email banners, social creative, seasonal campaigns)
Reinforcing digital campaigns or driving app engagement via in-store screens
Ensuring messaging is consistent across in-store and online touchpoints
Bundling signage with other digital placements in your media kits
Offering tiered packages with omnichannel reach or localized activations
Providing turnkey creative support to streamline advertiser onboarding

When thoughtfully integrated, digital signage becomes a powerful part of your go-to-market strategy, helping brands reach shoppers with the right message at the right time, both online and offline. Integration isn’t just about technology; it’s about alignment across content, channels, and teams.

4. Centralize measurement and reporting

One of the biggest hurdles in building or scaling digital signage within your retail media strategy is measurement. Without a clear plan, in-store signage can quickly become disconnected from your broader performance story—making it harder to justify spend or demonstrate value to advertisers.

To avoid that, build signage into your reporting framework from day one. Start by tracking foundational metrics:

Screen-level impressions and play counts to understand exposure volume
Dwell time to assess attention and engagement
Content playback logs to validate ad delivery and campaign pacing

Then, go deeper by connecting signage exposure to in-store outcomes, like product interaction, add-to-cart moments, or sales lift. These insights help prove that your in-store media is driving real business results, not just awareness.

By applying consistent measurement frameworks across both online and offline channels, you can tell a unified, full-funnel story. Mirroring key OOH and digital metrics—like reach, frequency, and lift—helps demonstrate how in-store signage works in tandem with campaigns on email, mobile, and paid social.

Modern digital signage platforms provide unified in-store reporting, making it easier to analyze performance, share results with brand partners, and refine campaigns in real time—turning in-store media into a measurable, scalable revenue channel within your retail media network.

READ ALSO: Discover how the OOH industry is leveraging technology to achieve more measurable campaign outcomes in our guide to out-of-home measurement, attribution and audience extension.

Ready to make your in-store signage a seamless part of your RMN?

Whether you’re planning your first deployment or optimizing existing screens, Broadsign’s industry-leading platform makes it easy to connect your in-store signage with the rest of your retail media ecosystem. With over two decades of experience in digital out-of-home, we help retailers build, manage, and monetize scalable signage networks that align with your broader media strategy.

Get in touch to see how we can help you unlock the full value of your in-store presence.

Product News | October 11, 2021

Broadsign Unveils Automated In-Advance DOOH Transactions

New platform capability to extend and simplify traditional DOOH and OOH buys through automated trading platforms; early adopter WPP Media Netherlands, formerly GroupM Netherlands, one of the first to deliver DOOH campaign with the technology

MONTREAL, June 3, 2025 – Broadsign today announced Broadsign In-Advance. Breaking down longstanding accessibility barriers to out-of-home (OOH) advertising, the new Broadsign Platform capability unlocks automated in-advance Digital OOH (DOOH) transactions, with support for static OOH transactions anticipated via a future update. Programmatic media buyers can now leverage Broadsign In-Advance to secure guaranteed DOOH campaigns months ahead of delivery using technology built on top of familiar automated trading tools. It also allows direct DOOH buyers to streamline historically lengthy buying cycles, saving hours spent manually discovering, curating, and reserving inventory.

With most OOH and DOOH media purchases still taking place manually, Broadsign In-Advance is designed to enable programmatic and traditional buyers to use automated, dynamic processes for guaranteed in-advance buys. It improves planning flexibility, significantly reduces back-and-forth communications between media buyers and owners to confirm the availability of and secure inventory, and simplifies campaign adjustments. The advancement further unlocks the data-driven targeting available via programmatic buying platforms for more traditional DOOH buys, so media buying teams can make more informed decisions to maximize the performance of their reserved campaigns.

DOOH media owners who make their inventory available for in-advance buys via the new capability similarly benefit from more efficient transactional processes and enhanced revenue potential through access to new buyers. They can choose the inventory they want to make available, and Broadsign In-Advance will automate bookings based on their defined business rules. Demand partners who activate the new capability via their Broadsign Supply-Side Platform (SSP) integration will be able to unlock previously unavailable inventory to support new campaign types and maximize profitability.

WPP Media Netherlands (formerly known as GroupM Netherlands) has already tested the new capability to secure DOOH ads across the Netherlands via OutMoove, the inaugural DSP to integrate with Broadsign In-Advance. As Broadsign evolves the technology, it will continue to enlist new demand and both digital and static OOH media owner partners worldwide. Representing one of the first agencies to execute a transaction supported by Broadsign In-Advance, WPP Media Netherlands Practice Lead OOH Noella Klein Ikkink said, “We see the potential of Broadsign In-Advance to increase efficiency for media buyers for standalone direct buys or in the mix with programmatic activation. It could also facilitate more streamlined, packaged buys alongside current buying methods and open up more opportunities to determine the best path forward, depending upon our planning strategy and budget.”

“OOH is one of the most enduring ad mediums today, yet it’s one of the most complex to transact outside of programmatic, which only accounts for less than ten percent of global digital buys, a figure that excludes static buys. Booking OOH and DOOH ads today should be as easy as securing a hotel or flight, and automation is the key to making this possible,” explained John Dolan, Vice President, Global Head of Media Sales, Broadsign. “Broadsign In-Advance is the next step in facilitating an industry-wide transition to more automated transactions. It introduces tech-driven advancements that will make the channel more accessible and elevate the quality of campaigns, helping to usher in a new era of growth for OOH.”

Broadsign’s new in-advance DOOH transaction capabilities are accessible to Broadsign SSP customers and demand partners for early adoption today via the latest platform update. Get in touch with a Broadsign representative to learn more or check out this blog post to better understand how automation can transform both OOH and DOOH. Broadsign encourages media buyers to consult with their preferred demand partner to confirm present or future plans to support Broadsign In-Advance.

About Broadsign

Broadsign empowers media owners, agencies, and brands to harness the power and reach of out-of-home to connect with audiences in ways unlike any other advertising channel. More than 1.5 million static and digital signs along roadways and in airports, shopping malls, retailers, health clinics, transit systems, electric vehicle charging stations, and more run on Broadsign, reaching audiences at multiple touchpoints throughout the consumer journey. The Broadsign Platform helps media owners such as Outfront, Pattison Outdoor, Global, and Intersection streamline business operations and maximize revenue opportunities while enabling marketers and agencies to more easily plan and execute dynamic OOH campaigns that resonate with audiences. Brands spanning AB InBev, Disney, FanDuel, H&M, Honda, HP, Johnson & Johnson, KLM, Uber Eats, Sea-Doo, Samsonite, and many more have run successful programmatic DOOH campaigns enabled by Broadsign technology. https://broadsign.com