How Non-Endemic Partnerships Are Changing Advertising in 2025
The U.S. omnichannel retail media advertising expenditure is projected to reach nearly $130 billion by 2028, accounting for almost a quarter of total media ad spend. As brands strategize for the year ahead, non-endemic retail media is poised to reshape advertising approaches in 2025.
Brands Venturing Beyond Traditional Categories
Non-endemic retail media are partnerships that enable brands to advertise on platforms outside their immediate industry, creating novel avenues to engage consumers. Companies are moving beyond traditional endemic partnerships — where brands advertise solely through retailers that stock their products — and are now exploring innovative collaborations that resonate with consumer lifestyles.
For example:
- A home security brand advertising on a real estate platform to reach new homeowners.
- A meal kit service promoting its offerings on a fitness retailer's website.
- A car rental company featuring ads on hotel booking sites.
By tapping into complementary sectors, brands can reach consumers at pertinent moments, fostering engagement and broadening their audience.
Enhancing Consumer Relevance
Today's consumers expect advertisements that align with their shopping journeys. The success of non-endemic partnerships hinges on ensuring that advertising content resonates with the retailer's audience and enriches the shopping experience.
Retailers and brands are prioritizing contextual relevance; for example, a luxury skincare brand advertising on a high-end fashion retailer's site is more appropriate than a discount electronics outlet. Seamless ad integration — where promotions appear as curated suggestions rather than disruptive banners — is key. By focusing on relevance, brands can make non-endemic advertising feel more organic and beneficial to consumers.
Leveraging First-Party Data for Informed Advertising
A significant advantage of non-endemic retail media is access to first-party data. With the decline of third-party cookies, brands require dependable data sources to shape their advertising strategies. Retailers offering non-endemic advertising opportunities can provide valuable insights into consumer behaviors, buying patterns and preferences.
For example, a streaming service can partner with an electronics retailer to target consumers who recently purchased smart TVs, or a pet insurance company can work with an online pet supplies vendor to advertise to their customers.
Retailers Capitalizing on Digital Assets
By opening their platforms to non-endemic partnerships, retailers can also generate new revenue streams while delivering relevant content to shoppers.
Some examples include grocery chains displaying ads for meal-planning applications or cookware brands, home improvement stores promoting interior design consultation services, and fitness retailers offering advertising space for wellness retreats or nutrition programs. Embracing non-endemic partnerships enables retailers to enhance their platform's value, providing a more enriching experience for both consumers and advertisers.
Navigating Measurement and Performance Evaluation
Despite the promise of non-endemic retail media, assessing its effectiveness presents challenges. Brands may be reluctant to increase spending without clear metrics demonstrating return on investment.
To address this, brands are setting explicit objectives — be it brand awareness, website traffic or direct sales — and establishing measurable key performance indicators. They're investing in analytics tools for real-time performance monitoring to fine-tune their strategies and explore affiliate marketing models that offer transparency and detailed attribution data, ensuring a clear understanding of advertising impact. As measurement tools advance, brands will gain confidence in allocating resources to non-endemic retail media.
Fifty-eight percent of advertisers have expressed interest in leveraging non-endemic data to target qualified audience segments this year, and it's a trend that will continue to grow. Non-endemic retail media is revolutionizing how brands connect with consumers, presenting new opportunities to expand reach, enhance relevance, and harness valuable first-party data. Companies can unlock significant growth in 2025 and beyond by forging strategic partnerships and refining measurement methodologies.
Piper Donnelly is an account director at Awin, a global affiliate marketing platform.
Piper Donnelly, Account Director, Awin
Digital strategist, team leader, and account director—meet Piper Donnelly. Piper is a digital and affiliate marketer with 10 year's experience, currently serving as Account Director at global affiliate marketing platform Awin. With some of the world's most popular enterprise brands under her remit, Piper brings passion to all she does, emphasizing positivity as the key to success for both her clients and her team of account managers. Believing in the power of purpose-driven actions, she sees this as a universal language for her brands to shape audience perception, thriving on creating relationships that empower those brands, their publishers and their consumers. Outside of her professional pursuits, Piper enjoys life in Austin, Texas, with her beloved rescue dog Ike.
