2026 is looking bright for commerce media: WPP Media

In 2025, commerce media is booming, driven by a shift to data-rich, purchase-moment targeting. With quick commerce, marketplaces and delivery apps, the time from ad exposure to transaction has shrunk to minutes, allowing brands to see clear, real-time impact at the point of sale.

Retail media networks are becoming central to brand strategies, even as challenges like fragmentation and privacy persist.

In a conversation with Campaign, Sairam Ranganathan, head of commerce; Ritika Taneja, senior vice-president, e-commerce, and Latish Nair, chief digital officer, e-commerce at WPP Media describe how the channel has evolved in 2025 and why there remains significant headroom for growth.

Edited excerpts:

A BCG survey earlier this year found that 86% of buyers of retail and commerce media believe that targeting through commerce media is more effective than other forms of digital advertising. Why do you think they feel so, particularly since this is a new media channel?

Sai Ranganathan: One of the big shifts that has happened in the consumer ecosystem is how quickly consumers are able to transact today, whether it's a platform like Amazon or a quick commerce platform Blinkit/ Zepto or a food delivery app (Swiggy/Zomato). The time from craving to purchase is now 10 minutes because of quick commerce. Which means the client is able to see the benefit of that advertising converting at the moment of truth (the purchase touch point).

The client is able to trace the full [funnel] view from the time consumer is exposed to the ad, has visited the website/platform, searched for the product, added it to the cart, purchased and so on and so forth. That's a big shift. 10 years, 15 years ago, if somebody saw an ad, they’d probably search for it on Google and then visit the store after a period of tome. Today the ability for ad exposure to immediately become a shopping moment is much higher. I think that's one big reason why everyone feels that commerce media is effective.

Having said that, is an interplay. We don’t live in a linear world. Today, there are so many touchpounts that could influence any purchase: it could have been influencer content on Instagram or an ad on television, a certain YouTube video or some other content which influenced you. The ease of the commerce ads to convert an exposure into a shopping moment is really high and that's the reason why today you see advertisers increasing their budgets from a media standpoint on that as a channel.

Latish Nair: Expanding on what Sai said, I think we're moving from an era of probabilistic data to far more deterministic data where shopping signals are easily available. We may also move the metrics from reach and frequency to a ROAS (Return on ad spend) kind of metric. That's one big change because of commerce media.

Ritika Taneja: Additionally, commerce penetration in India is only about 11%. We are still far away from where mature markets, such as China or the US, which have a 25-30% penetration. There is significant headroom for growth of commerce in India and therefore commerce media will continue to accelerate in more remarkable manner than before.

One reason of course is maturity of platforms but also how these platforms are no longer just lower funnel sales driving platforms, but full funnel brand-building platforms also. The maximum acceleration has happened post Covid, and we see that acceleration continuing at least until 2030.

Is quick commerce (Q-comm) primarily driving this surge in commerce media?

Ranganathan: Quick commerce is still a small part of the overall commerce. The shifts that have happened has been influenced significantly from a quick commerce standpoint but quick commerce is still a small part of the overall commerce.

I think there are three or four things which have helped. One is this entire digital move. Today, a lot of people are comfortable doing digital transactions, which could be attributable to UPI or to faster and cheaper Internet access. And of course the infrastructure, whether it was some of the big things that Amazon and Flipkart have done over the last 10 odd years or quick commerce in the last two years. I think it’s a combination of all these things that is making commerce media the force to reckon with today.  

Commerce media is one of the fastest-growing areas in digital advertising, but measurement remains a persistent barrier. Retail media, DTC, and other channels operate in isolation, making unified measurement impossible and leading to double-counting or misattributing sales. How are you overcoming these silos?

Nair: You have two ecosystems right now: the offsite ecosystem and the onsite ecosystem (q-comm and the Amazons of the world). We as partners to brands have established the offsite ecosystem pretty well because that has a legacy: measurement, calculations, SOV, etc.

Onsite will continue to be an isolation; each of the 5-6 platforms will be a walled garden and may not necessarily do a cross pollination of data. So the biggest challenge is cross measurement, which is not going to happen. Within the site itself, one can do a full-funnel marketing but that’s a limitation that brands will have to live with.

Brands will also have to live with CPM (Cost per mille) inflations going forward. But ultimately that's the reason why R&F (reach and frequency) may shift to ROAS-style (Return on ad spend) measurements. So the main measurement will be basis ROAS, unlike the offsite ecosystem where we used to do reach and frequency and SOVs. That's the fundamental shift.

If you do look at traditional platforms like YouTube, it's still R&F as the metric, but today YouTube also has products which are measured in ROAS. So they've pivoted into that. In fact, we recently launched the CPAS playbook, which is a pivot to ROAS.

WPP’s latest global ad spend forecast predicts that commerce media will surpass the amount spent globally on linear and connected TV in 2025 (15.6% vs 14.6%). Does the same hold true in India?

Ranganathan: That is a global report. Is commerce adex in India growing as part of the overall adex? Yes, it is growing and growing significantly. In the same report, we have also called out that it will be close to 15% of the total adex in 2026.

However, in India, we’re still a large TV economy, and that includes both linear TV and connected TV. When will commerce media exceed TV? I think there is quite some time. Digital as an overall thing has exceeded in India compared to television. But for commerce media to exceed TV, it's going to take some time for us to see that change happening.

Is commerce media largely an urban phenomenon?

Nair: I think the Collaborative Ads (CPAS_ ecosystem, the Google ecosystem is definitely reaching the India 2, India 3 markets. I do bet my monies for certain accounts for the India 2, India 3 markets. But, the onset proposition is still India 1. Pure play, can I use an onsite inventory for an India two industry? I probably won’t be so comfortable yet.

Ranganathan: There are there are three parts. First, there is a digital ecosystem, that is your Google / Meta, etc. Some of these guys have solutions today -- either partnerships with commerce or their own solutions -- which is helping brands sell more. That has massive scale across Tier one cities, Tier 2 cities and so forth.

Next is your marketplaces: Amazon, Flipkart, TataCLiQ, Myntra -- all of them are on expansion modes. They have expanded across Tier 2, Tier 3 but still obviously urban.

Next comes quick commerce which today is largely urban and restricted to the top 25-30 cities. There are conversations happening in the market that how the number of dark stores are going to triple. And each of these quick commerce players have aggressive plans to replicate what they have done in the top 30 cities in the top 100 cities. When that happens, it will become Tier 2, Tier 3. But for now, Q-commerce is still largely tier one or metro.

Taneja: I think I'll just add on. There are players who are of course highly focused on Tier 2, Tier 3 sort of cities and that's where a lot of buildup is happening, not only from the commerce media standpoint, but also from the demand signal standpoint.

For example, Meeshos, Snapdeal and a whole lot of local regional players who are sort of encashing on these opportunities. That would be the way forward for deeper acceleration and penetration.

Do you expect to see retail media spending surge in 2026?

Ranganathan: It is going to increase for sure, purely because there is momentum on its side. To know the quantum, we'll have to wait for the TYNY of 2026.

I think one new thing which is happening is what we call ‘universal commerce’. Imagine you're seeing an ad on Amazon Prime. The chance that you see the ad and you will act upon it and buy in Amazon and their ability to identify that a Prime member who watched Family Man Episode 3 also purchased XYZ product, the flavour of things like that will be higher in 2026.

At its core, commerce media is about understanding shoppers and their digital footprint. But with the new Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) rules coming into play, how are you re-engineering how you collect data?

Ranganathan: The new DPDP rules are a good thing. It will force marketers, as well as agency partners like us, to think differently. If earlier we used to think how can I acquire consumer data, the question now shifts to how can I create a meaningful experience and thereby acquire data in a compliant way. That to me is the big difference from orientation of the first party data acquisition.

As WPP Media, we've always respected that consumer privacy comes first and have always been compliant with the laws of the land. Our focus has always been how can we build what we call ‘value exchanges’. If a consumer is coming to your website and you are asking the consumer to share their e-mail ID or mobile number, why should they do that? What is the benefit for them? And how do you build confidence that this is something that will be done in a compliant way?

The ecosystem as well is far more evolved today, from a safety standpoint. Data clean rooms is one example of that.

Marketers are increasingly chasing incrementality as their primary metric. How do you measure incrementality?

Nair: Within the onsite ecosystem today, inflations are becoming a big issue for brands. Year on year, the CPMs are going up. Saturation levels aren’t necessarily coming in because new users are being added, but the CPM keeps increasing. Hence products like CPAS and PFM allows us to bring that imcrementality pocket.

Does it deliver? Yes. Initial reads have shown us that there are incremented ROAS which comes from offsite media, but your landing pages have to be the respective platforms. I believe ‘incrementality ROAS’ as a keyword is going to be the buzzword for 2026 for sure.

Let’s talk contextual advertising…

Taneja: Contextual advertising works very effectively because it reflects how commerce actually happens. When it comes to e-commerce, we've seen that signals like search intent, category context, occasion and timings are often more predictive of conversion than audience profiles. Context helps brand align, spend to real buying moments and therefore ensure discipline on which products and message deserve investment and in which format, improving efficiency to a great extent.

What questions should advertisers be asking of commerce media in 2026?

Taneja: I think the first one will be, ‘Is my spend generally incremental or am I paying to convert demand I already own?’. That’s the first question I get and the one people are thinking about the most. Platforms are able to answer this question, but there are always complexities around it because commerce ecosystem is evolving and becoming more mature.

Nair: I would force brands to ask for more data in order to have an effective measurement. That’s one thing I've been gunning for. What kind of traffic comes in? What is the output? How is the offset media I'm using to drive traffic to your landing pages helping? Does it require a JBP? For me, to do a cross pollination of data points or a multiple cross funnel marketing, a lot of data inputs are required, which is [sorely] lacking at this point. Measurement data points is something I’d like brands to leverage.

Some platforms do keep based on the relationship, the GPPs, but I think if you want to see the ecosystem evolve like the offsite ecosystem, platforms need to be more transparent in sharing data points. And this information is available, but at a huge cost.

Ranganathan: A couple of questions: How does the sum total of all the things they do--regular media, content, ATL media, BTL media, etc --how is that all integrated with what they do in commerce? Second, how do we use commerce and retail media in a far better way than we are doing today? Are we making the right choices from a platform standpoint? Are we bringing the best of media creative together? I think these would be some of the questions.

Final thoughts, what does commerce media look like in 2026?

Nair: For me, it’s explosion of retail media to deliver on instrumentality ROAS. That’s what we’ve been focusing on at our set of accounts.

Taneja: Incrementality, as Latish mentioned, and therefore robust measurements will play a key role in the expansion of commerce media.

Ranganathan: One thing which I'm looking forward to in 2026 is how do you build a robust test-and-learn calendar that will help you learn fast and accelerate fast. Today the cost of an experiment is some hundred dollars, making it easy to experiment and learn quicker how to scale. That, to me, is going to be one of the key things from a 2026 standpoint.