North American Media Experts
US retail media hits $69B in 2026. Amazon ACoS averages 32%, Walmart Connect CPCs run 55% lower, and Instacart delivers 18–25% conversion rates. Here's what the data means for your budget.
9 min read
Retail media just crossed $69 billion in annual US ad spend — and the gap between brands using platform-specific benchmarks and those flying blind is widening fast. According to eMarketer's H1 2026 forecast, US advertisers will spend $69.33 billion on retail media in 2026, up approximately 18% from $58.79 billion in 2025. Globally, the market is approaching $165 billion, representing 15.4% of all digital ad spend worldwide.
The channel is enormous. But average retail media benchmarks are nearly useless without platform context. An ACoS that looks terrible on Amazon might be a stellar result on Walmart Connect. A ROAS you'd celebrate on Instacart might signal underperformance on Amazon Sponsored Products. This post breaks down the real numbers by platform, category, and format — so you know exactly where you stand and how to act on it.
Three dynamics explain why retail media benchmarks diverge more than almost any other paid channel:
Understanding these dynamics is the foundation for reading the benchmarks correctly. For broader context on how different paid channels compare on cost, see our breakdown of programmatic advertising costs across CPM, CPC, and CPV formats.
Amazon Sponsored Products remain the dominant retail media format globally. According to 2026 data from Autron, Ad Badger, and Trellis, the current Amazon Sponsored Products benchmarks break down as follows:
Category variance is where the real intelligence lives. Here's how the major categories perform:
The critical context for ACoS: your target ACoS should equal your product's break-even threshold, not the platform average. Break-even ACoS = (1 − gross margin) × 100. A 32% ACoS on a product with 55% gross margin is highly profitable. The same 32% on a 28% margin product is a money-loser. Always benchmark against your own margin structure.
Amazon CPCs hit record highs heading into Prime Day 2026, according to Novadata's June 2026 tracking — making pre-event bid management and dayparting more critical than ever for brands who haven't locked in their Prime Day campaign structure in advance.
Walmart Connect is the most underutilized retail media platform in North America for most advertisers outside the CPG and grocery verticals — and the benchmarks make a compelling case for reallocation. According to Pacvue's Q1 2025 benchmark report, Walmart Connect outperforms Amazon on three core efficiency metrics:
The opportunity gap is clear: Amazon still dominates retail media revenue — over 76% of US dollars according to eMarketer — but the competition-to-opportunity ratio on Walmart Connect is substantially more favorable for brands willing to invest now. Brands establishing strong Walmart Connect positions in 2026 are locking in share-of-voice before the platform's ad load catches up to Amazon's pricing pressure.
Walmart Connect's audience also differs meaningfully from Amazon's. Walmart shoppers index toward suburban, value-oriented households with median incomes around $80,000 — often the exact demographic underserved by premium-skewed Amazon targeting. For CPG, household essentials, and everyday apparel, this audience is frequently more efficient to reach and convert.
Instacart occupies a unique position in retail media: it delivers grocery purchase intent at the moment of highest conversion probability. The platform's 2026 benchmarks, drawn from Perpetua, P2PI, and Pacvue, reflect this structural advantage:
The CTR and conversion rate gap versus Amazon and Walmart Connect is not accidental — it is a function of intent timing. When a shopper is building an Instacart cart, they are not browsing. They are buying. A sponsored product appearing at that moment benefits from context no other format can replicate.
Instacart's Universal Campaigns, launched in early 2025, have improved efficiency further by consolidating Sponsored Products and Shoppable Display into a single ML-optimized campaign with one unified budget. General Mills reported approximately 50% ROAS improvement after adopting Instacart's optimized bidding — a data point that illustrates how much headroom still exists for brands that have not yet implemented advanced bidding on the platform.
Scale-wise, Instacart now reaches 95% of North American households through 1,800+ retail banners and over 100,000 store locations. The reach argument is nearly as strong as the performance argument for grocery and household categories.
Here is how Amazon, Walmart Connect, and Instacart compare on the metrics that drive paid media planning decisions:
CPC (Sponsored Products):
CTR (Sponsored Products):
Conversion Rate:
Blended ROAS (Sponsored Products):
US retail media revenue share (eMarketer, 2026):
The conclusion from this data is not that Amazon is underperforming — it's that the market has priced Amazon's dominance into its CPCs, while Walmart Connect and Instacart still offer early-mover efficiency that will not persist indefinitely as advertiser adoption grows. For a fuller picture of how these benchmarks compare against other paid channels, our average ROAS benchmarks by industry and channel report covers search, social, and programmatic in parallel.
The optimal answer for most brands is a diversified allocation weighted by category fit rather than by platform scale. Here is the decision framework:
Allocate to Amazon first if:
Allocate to Walmart Connect if:
Allocate to Instacart if:
The core principle: retail media dollars should be allocated by buyer intent proximity, not by platform size. The biggest platform is not automatically the most efficient for your specific category, margin structure, or buyer demographic.
Benchmarks only create value when they drive action. Here are four immediate applications:
1. Calculate your break-even ACoS before setting a target. Break-even ACoS = (1 − gross margin) × 100. If your margin is 40%, your break-even is 60%. Setting a target at 30% means you're running at 2× profitability. Setting it at 65% means you're losing money on every ad-driven sale. The platform average of ~32% is only relevant if your margins match the average product in that category.
2. Diagnose CTR and conversion rate problems separately. Low CTR (below 0.4% on Amazon) is almost always a creative or keyword relevance problem — your ad is appearing but not compelling a click. Low conversion rate (below 8% on Amazon) is almost always a product page problem — shoppers are clicking but the listing isn't closing them. These require completely different fixes and budgets.
3. Benchmark at the SKU level, not the account level. A blended 3.5x account ROAS often hides the reality that 20% of your SKUs drive 80% of your return while the rest subsidize waste. Pull ROAS by product and by match type to find where budget is being diluted before you increase total spend.
4. Time budget increases around platform-specific intent peaks. Amazon CPCs spike before Prime Day and peak in Q4. Instacart CTR peaks on weekend mornings when shoppers plan weekly orders. Walmart Connect sees its highest engagement on Sunday evenings. Understanding when each platform's intent is highest is as important as knowing the annual averages.
For brands thinking about how first-party customer data integrates with retail media targeting, our guide to first-party data strategy in digital advertising explains how customer match lists and lookalike audiences improve targeting efficiency across all three platforms — and why brands building first-party infrastructure now will have a structural advantage as retail media CPCs continue to rise.
If you're unsure whether your retail media campaigns are structured to hit these benchmarks, our audience targeting and media buying team can audit your current setup and identify where budget efficiency is being lost.
The 2026 platform average ACoS is approximately 32.48%, but a "good" ACoS depends entirely on your product's gross margin. Your break-even ACoS = (1 − gross margin) × 100. For a product with 45% gross margin, anything below 45% is technically profitable. Most experienced Amazon advertisers target 20–30% ACoS on brand defense campaigns and 28–38% on category expansion, but the right number for your business starts with your margin math, not industry averages.
Walmart Connect delivers approximately 55% lower CPCs and 25% higher ROAS than Amazon on matched CPG categories, according to Pacvue's 2025 benchmark data. For grocery, household, and value-oriented categories, Walmart Connect is currently more efficient on a per-dollar basis. Amazon retains advantages in scale, breadth of categories, and brand defense. The optimal approach is a diversified retail media mix weighted by category fit rather than a single-platform commitment.
Instacart's 2026 benchmark ROAS range is 4.8–6.7x for sponsored products, with a grocery-specific average of approximately $5.25 according to P2PI and Perpetua data. Conversion rates run 18–25%, the highest of any retail media platform. CPCs of $0.25–$0.85 make Instacart the most cost-efficient retail media option per conversion for CPG brands, particularly for new SKU launches targeting trial at the moment of purchase.
According to eMarketer's H1 2026 forecast, US retail media ad spend will reach $69.33 billion in 2026, up approximately 18% from $58.79 billion in 2025. Globally, the market is projected at approximately $165 billion. Amazon holds approximately 76% of US retail media revenue. Three-quarters of US advertisers plan to increase their retail media budgets in 2026, driven by first-party data targeting, closed-loop attribution, and demonstrable ROAS.
For most brands in CPG, grocery, or household categories: yes. Each platform reaches a meaningfully different buyer at a different stage of intent. Amazon captures broad search intent across categories; Walmart Connect reaches value-focused households at lower CPCs; Instacart converts grocery buyers at the moment of cart-building. Running all three with category-specific budget weighting typically outperforms single-platform concentration, provided each campaign is managed to platform-appropriate benchmarks and measured with platform-appropriate attribution.
Knowing the numbers is step one. Building campaigns that consistently outperform them is where the real work — and real return — happens. North American Media Experts manages retail media campaigns across Amazon, Walmart Connect, and Instacart with a focus on category-specific benchmark targets, incremental ROAS measurement, and budget allocation frameworks built around how each platform actually works.
If your retail media spend is not hitting these benchmarks, or you are not yet running on all three platforms, we can help you close the gap.
Book a free intro call to talk through your retail media mix and category strategy — or request a free paid media audit to see exactly where your current campaigns stand against 2026 benchmarks.