Retail and Social Media Networks Are Converging - and Competing

Teresa Sperti
10 hours ago
5 min read

Retail media networks are integrating more social media formats and buying capabilities. Social platforms are embedding commerce as a core part of their strategy. Both are increasingly competing for the same media dollars.

What we are seeing is the gradual convergence of two ecosystems that were once clearly separated. Retail media was built around transactions. Social platforms were built around attention.

That convergence is now happening in both directions.

On the retail media side, networks increasingly see social platforms as a natural extension of their media offering and an opportunity to introduce new formats while expanding available inventory. With social accounting for roughly one in three minutes spent online, these environments provide scale and attention that retailer owned channels cannot replicate. Retailers bring something equally valuable to the partnership: rich first party transaction data that enables precise product targeting and measurable sales outcomes.

Social platforms, meanwhile, are moving in the opposite direction and deeper into commerce itself. Buying moments now surface across feeds, search, streaming environments. Social commerce already shows how compressed this journey can become. Within ecosystems like TikTok, discovery and purchase can occur almost instantly as content, creators and native checkout converge.

As both ecosystems compete for a larger share of brand investment, the boundaries between media, discovery and commerce are beginning to collapse.

Retail Media Networks’ Expansion

Retail media networks have spent the past several years expanding well beyond sponsored search. What began as a performance channel tied closely to trade budgets has steadily evolved into a full funnel proposition as retailers attempt to capture a larger share of brand media investment. As part of that evolution, social platforms have become an important extension of retail media networks globally.

For many years these partnerships largely focused on extending reach and activating retailer first party data across social environments.

Over the past 18 months, however, the nature of these partnerships has begun to change. Increasingly they are becoming a source of innovation, with retailers and platforms experimenting with new formats, unique placements and deeper integrations designed to differentiate retail media offerings.

In 2025, CVS’ retail media arm CMX announced a partnership with Reddit designed to insert brands directly into health and wellness conversations within online communities. The initiative blends promoted posts and discussion threads with retailer data, allowing advertisers to reach audiences in trusted environments while linking engagement back to retail sales. As conversation-led discovery becomes a more prominent part of how consumers research products, the partnership highlights how retail media networks are experimenting with new formats that embed brands directly within moments of consumer dialogue.

In June 2025, Pinterest announced a new partnership with Instacart to enable Pinterest shoppable ads via Instacart – giving Pinterest users the ability to complete their purchase. The collaboration in its second phase sees the introduction of closed loop measurement, connecting ad exposure on Pinterest to actual product sales through Instacart’s marketplace, while enabling users to purchase directly from shoppable Pins with near-instant delivery.

More recent developments show partnerships continuing to evolve.

In Australia, in February 2026 Coles 360 partnered with Snapchat to integrate “Promoted Places” into Snap Map, enabling brands to push specific brands or products when users are physically near a Coles store – creating new “in moment” targeting opportunities. The objective is to bridge digital discovery with physical shopping behaviour while using retailer data to measure the resulting sales impact.

At the same time, some retailers are experimenting with entirely new environments. Albertsons, Target and Williams-Sonoma are already testing advertising placements within OpenAI’s ChatGPT ecosystem as part of early experiments in AI-native commerce. While not social specifically, it demonstrates the continuous innovation and evolution retail media networks are pursuing to remain competitive in a rapidly changing media landscape.

Social’s Commerce Push Is Equally Deliberate

While retail media has been moving up the funnel to win brand budgets, social platforms have been moving downward to protect revenues.

Not because social has lost relevance, but because social platforms are actively seeking to protect advertising revenues. Shopping has also become a natural extension, with creators increasingly driving product discovery and purchase through content.

Retail media is capturing a growing share of marketing investment. Keen Decision Systems’ 2026 Marketing Investment Framework, based on 400 brands and $42 billion in historical marketing investment, shows retail media growing from 15% of budgets in 2022 to 22% in 2025. Over the same period, social’s share edged slightly from 18% to 17%.

That is not a collapse. But it is a signal.

Commerce driven dollars are being pulled toward environments that can prove purchase intent and connect media exposure to measurable outcomes. Retail media networks also benefit from deeper, more strategic relationships with brands. Unlike self-service social platforms, retail media is typically one part of a broader commercial partnership between retailers and suppliers and at times brands feel like they need to be actively seen to be participating in retail media or they risk their entire partnership with a retailer.

Social platforms know this, and the response is not to retreat. It is to innovate and evolve. That evolution is taking place in two ways:

Building better tools for retail media networks so retailers can monetise their audiences more effectively and deliver better solutions to customers,
Continuing to innovate for brands by closing the gap between discovery, influence and conversion.

The new wave of social commerce innovation is about making social feel less like a media channel and more like a commerce engine, while bringing retail-grade optimisation into social advertising systems.

Recent developments include:

Meta has introduced new retail media optimisation tools, including product set optimisation and SKU-level sales insights. Publicised in early March 2026, these capabilities are designed to help retail media networks tap into the nearly $200 billion retail media opportunity, according to eMarketer.

These developments bring social advertising closer to the performance expectations of retail media, allowing campaigns to be optimised around individual products rather than broad audience segments while making it easier to demonstrate incremental sales impact.

Meta testing AI shopping experiences that keep product research and evaluation inside conversational interfaces. As discovery increasingly happens through AI interactions rather than search results or retailer websites, the platforms that control those interfaces will influence which products and brands are surfaced. This innovation in the shopping experience will likely see new shopping ads and formats emerge for brands to engage in the moment.

Pinterest is also making several plays – demonstrated by recruitment of new talent and investment in both commerce and retail media offerings. Pinterest has recently announced the appointment of two new executives to power their commerce ambitions including one ex Amazon exec. It comes off the back of their roll out of Pinterest Media Network Connect in the back half of 2025 that sought to allow advertisers and RMNs to better understand sales from ad spend.

All of these and others reinforce social media platforms are designing and evolving their ecosystems to compete for commerce budgets, reduce the leakage of brand spend into retailer owned environments and position social platforms as measurable commerce channels rather than purely discovery layers.

Partnership, Not Platform Wars

What we are seeing is not a winner takes all battle between retail media networks and social platforms.

It is the formation of a new commerce media layer where both sides bring different assets and capabilities which together provide compelling offerings in market.

Retail media networks hold the signals closest to purchase: transaction data, retailer relationships and closed loop attribution.

Social platforms hold the environments where discovery increasingly happens: creators, communities, cultural momentum and habitual daily engagement.

Neither side owns the full journey.

And neither side should try to.

Partnerships between retailers and platforms are designed to extend influence earlier in the journey while measuring outcomes further down it. Social environments drive discovery and inspiration. Retail data anchors targeting and proves commercial impact.

The result is a commerce landscape where the boundaries between media, discovery and transaction are becoming increasingly fluid.

At Arktic Fox, we help brands and retailers prepare for step-change moments in commerce. If you need help navigating this increasingly complex industry, let's chat.