RETAIL MEDIA OFFSITE TRENDS IN OMNICHANNEL GROCERY
Live Session Recap: Retail Media offsite trends in Omnichannel grocery
RMN offsite media is the third pillar of retail media and the fastest-growing channel for CPG brands. Learn how it works, who it reaches, and how to measure it.
Offsite retail media is not your brand team’s programmatic spend. It is a distinct discipline built to drive sales at specific retailers, and most CPG brands are not using it that way yet.
Paid search at Target or Walmart is table stakes. On-site display rounds out the retailer experience. But the shoppers who will never click a search ad and rarely browse retailer websites still buy your product. They account for roughly 75% of CPG volume, and they are almost entirely in store. Reaching them requires a different approach.
RMN offsite media is that approach. It uses retailer first-party data, third-party audience signals, and precise geo-targeting to reach shoppers across the open internet, CTV, mobile apps, social and streaming audio, and then closes the loop back to actual sales.
On May 19, 2026, DIGITS hosted a Live Insider Session on offsite retail media trends across omnichannel grocery. DIGITS Founder and CEO Dave Glaza, VP of Retail Media Dylan Mueller, and guest speaker Ben Severino from The Trade Desk walked through how offsite works in practice, where brands are getting it right, and what the measurement story actually looks like.
This recap covers the key insights from that session.
Why This Matters Right Now
Offsite retail media spending is projected to grow at twice the rate of on-site media in 2026. Retailers are no longer simply selling ad inventory on their own platforms. They are building full ecosystems that extend their first-party shopper data across CTV, programmatic display, paid social, audio, and the open internet.
For CPG brands, this shift changes how budgets need to be structured, how audiences are built, and how success gets measured. Brands that treat offsite as an afterthought are ceding ground to competitors who are already running geo-targeted, closed-loop campaigns at the store level.
Key Takeaways at a Glance
RMN offsite media is fundamentally different from national brand programmatic spend. It is bottoms-up, retailer-focused, and built to drive near-term sales at specific locations.
First-party retailer data and third-party audience data serve different purposes and produce different measurement outcomes. Understanding the difference is essential before building a media plan.
Geo-targeting is not optional for third-party offsite campaigns. Without it, you are running brand awareness, not retail media.
The majority of incremental sales driven by offsite campaigns happen in store, not online.
Managed service and self-service offsite models are each appropriate for different brand situations. The distinction matters for budget control, attribution, and optimization flexibility.
What Is RMN Offsite Media and How Is It Different From What My Brand Team Does?
RMN offsite media is retailer-specific, store-level advertising designed to drive near-term sales at a particular retailer, not national brand awareness.
National brand programmatic campaigns are tops-down. They build broad awareness across mass audiences regardless of where a consumer ultimately shops. RMN offsite is the opposite. It is bottoms-up, built around specific retail accounts, seasonal priorities, new item launches, co-space placements, and competitive situations at individual retailers.
As Dylan Mueller explained during the session, the distinction matters because the strategy, audiences, creative, and measurement are all different. A brand running national Instagram to build awareness and a brand running geo-targeted mobile display around 1,400 Target stores for a new item launch are doing fundamentally different things, even if both show up on the same phone.
The channels that fall under RMN offsite include programmatic display, connected television, online video, paid social, digital out-of-home, and programmatic audio. At Target specifically, the offsite product is called Bullseye Marketplace. Brands can activate it through a Roundel-managed service relationship at higher spend thresholds, or access it through a DSP like The Trade Desk via an agency at lower minimums.
DIGITS’ minimum for offsite campaigns is $40,000, compared to $500,000 or more annually through direct Roundel managed service.
How Does Retailer First-Party Data Work in Offsite Media?
Yes, retailers share their audience data for offsite activation, but the degree and mechanics vary by retailer.
First-party retailer data means the retailer is extending its own customer segments, built from loyalty programs, credit card transactions, and purchase history, into offsite environments. If Target has identified you as a frequent baby products buyer, Roundel can make that audience segment available for offsite campaign activation through a DSP. The ad follows that audience across the open internet, not just on Target.com.
The primary benefit of first-party retailer data is closed-loop measurement. Because the retailer knows who was in the audience and can observe what they purchased after ad exposure, the campaign can produce actual return on ad spend figures tied to in-store and online sales. As Ben Severino from The Trade Desk described, the platform connects consumer identifiers to ad exposure and then matches them to retailer sales data to determine whether an impression drove a purchase.
The limitation is scale. First-party audiences are bounded by who the retailer already knows. A shopper who buys produce primarily at a specialty grocer will not appear in Target’s fruit buyer segments, even if they occasionally shop at Target. Over-reliance on first-party data produces smaller, increasingly narrow audience pools over time.
Third-party data addresses the scale problem by pulling in behavioral and demographic signals from outside the retailer ecosystem. A wine brand can build an audience of wine buyers within a specific radius of each Target location, regardless of whether those shoppers are in Roundel’s database. The tradeoff is that third-party campaigns typically produce media KPIs (impressions, clicks, CTR) rather than direct ROAS, though DIGITS provides incremental sales lift analysis using Target point-of-sale data to quantify the revenue impact.
Why Does Geo-Targeting Matter for Offsite Campaigns?
Without geo-targeting, third-party offsite campaigns become national brand media. With it, they become store-level sales activation.
This is one of the most important mechanics in offsite retail media and one of the most commonly misunderstood. Target and Walmart each generate roughly 95% of their sales volume from shoppers who live within approximately 10 miles of the store where they purchase. That geography is the universe that matters.
When brands run third-party offsite media without geo-targeting, they are serving impressions to audiences who may have no meaningful path to the stores where the brand is carried. This wastes budget and inflates impression counts without driving the in-store behavior the campaign was designed to produce.
DIGITS builds geo-targeting parameters around the latitude and longitude of each specific store in a brand’s distribution footprint. The standard radius is 7.5 miles for broader market campaigns and as tight as 250 meters for DIGITS In-Store, which targets consumers physically present in a store at the moment of ad exposure.
As Dylan Mueller noted during the session, mobile-first media is central to this approach because location data is current. Reaching someone on their phone while they are within five miles of a Target on a Friday afternoon is a fundamentally different media moment than reaching them at home on a desktop on a Tuesday morning.
The practical result: mobile heavy, geo-targeted third-party campaigns consistently show that approximately 85% of incremental sales they generate occur in store, not online.
Should My Brand Use Managed Service or Self-Service for Offsite Campaigns?
The right model depends on your budget, how much control you want over campaign optimization, and which retailer you are activating through.
Retailer managed service offsite programs, such as Roundel at Target, handle strategy, targeting, and execution on behalf of the brand. They offer the advantage of tight integration with the retailer’s own data and systems. The tradeoff is higher spend minimums, less day-to-day optimization control, and media briefs that may not reflect the brand’s specific priorities.
Self-service offsite, accessed through a DSP like The Trade Desk, gives the brand and its agency direct control over campaign parameters. Audiences, targeting radius, flight dates, budget pacing, and creative are all managed in-platform in real time. This model has expanded significantly. Walmart has moved substantially toward self-service for offsite activation, and Target is expected to follow a similar path over the next few years.
As Dave Glaza noted, Walmart is currently ahead of Target in the self-service migration, both on-site and off-site. That shift places more decision-making authority with brands and their agency partners, which increases the value of working with an agency that has deep platform expertise.
For brands new to offsite, DIGITS typically recommends beginning with paid search to establish baseline on-site performance, then expanding to offsite once that channel is optimized. The transition point varies by brand, but the general signal is when on-site search returns are flattening and incremental volume requires reaching shoppers outside the retailer’s owned surfaces.
How Do You Prove Offsite ROI When Most Sales Happen In Store?
Closed-loop measurement through first-party retailer data and incremental sales lift analysis through point-of-sale reporting are the two primary methods.
This is the question that comes up most often from brand teams presenting offsite investments to leadership. The answer depends on whether the campaign uses first-party or third-party audiences.
For first-party campaigns activated through retailer data, the retailer provides closed-loop sales attribution. The campaign output includes total attributed sales and ROAS, broken down by channel (in-store and online). If spend levels qualify for incremental sales lift reporting, the retailer can also provide a true incrementality analysis showing the revenue generated above what would have occurred without the media.
Spend thresholds for first-party incremental reporting vary. At Walmart Connect and similar first-party programs, minimum media spend for IROAS reporting typically starts at $100,000 or more. Third-party programs have lower thresholds.
For third-party campaigns, DIGITS uses a control and holdout methodology. Stores receiving media are compared against matched control stores using year-over-year point-of-sale data. The output is incremental sales dollars, incremental percentage lift, and an estimated IROaS by channel. The minimum spend for statistically reliable third-party sales lift analysis at DIGITS is $25,000 in media, with a minimum flight of four weeks and a recommended flight of six to twelve weeks for more stable results.
As Dylan Mueller summarized during the session: a $50,000 campaign can produce a specific incremental revenue figure. That number gives leadership a defensible ROI story that does not require relying solely on media KPIs.
Action Steps for CPG Brands Evaluating Offsite Retail Media
1. Audit your current media mix against your distribution footprint.
If your brand is carried in 1,200 Target stores but your current media strategy does not include geo-targeted activation around those specific locations, you are leaving a significant amount of in-store sales influence on the table.
2. Clarify whether your offsite goal is tops-down or bottoms-up.
National brand programmatic and RMN offsite are not substitutes. Determine whether your priority is broad awareness or driving velocity at specific retail accounts, then build the audience and measurement strategy accordingly.
3. Understand the first-party versus third-party tradeoff before you plan.
First-party audiences give you closed-loop ROAS and tighter retailer alignment. Third-party audiences give you scale and incrementality. Most mature offsite programs use both. Know which you are starting with and what measurement outputs you should expect.
4. Establish your geo-targeting parameters before campaign build.
Map your actual store distribution. Define the radius that makes sense for your category and shopper behavior. Do not default to national targeting for a campaign that should be store-specific.
5. Set a realistic spend threshold for measurement.
If you want incremental sales lift data from a third-party campaign, plan for a minimum of $25,000 in media spend and a four to six week flight. Below that threshold, results are directional but not statistically reliable enough to present to leadership with confidence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between RMN offsite media and my brand team’s programmatic spend?
RMN offsite media is built specifically to drive sales at individual retailers using retailer audience data or geo-targeted third-party audiences. National brand programmatic is designed for broad awareness without a specific retail account focus. The strategy, targeting, creative, and measurement frameworks are different for each.
What is Bullseye Marketplace at Target?
Bullseye Marketplace is Target’s off-site media product, managed through Roundel. It allows brands to extend their Target campaigns beyond Target.com into programmatic display, CTV, and other open internet channels using Roundel’s first-party data. Brands can access it through Roundel managed service at higher spend levels, or through a DSP partner like The Trade Desk via an agency.
How do I measure the impact of offsite media on in-store sales?
For first-party retailer campaigns, the retailer provides closed-loop ROAS covering both in-store and online conversions. For third-party campaigns, incremental sales lift analysis using point-of-sale data compares media-exposed stores against matched control stores to produce an estimate of incremental revenue and return on ad spend.
How tight should my geo-targeting radius be for an offsite campaign?
DIGITS uses a 7.5-mile radius as a standard for third-party offsite campaigns, based on the pattern that most Target and Walmart purchases originate within approximately 10 miles of the store. For hyper-local in-store targeting, DIGITS In-Store uses a 250-meter radius around individual store locations, reaching shoppers actively present in or near the store.
What is the minimum spend needed to get meaningful results from an offsite campaign?
DIGITS’ minimum for running an offsite campaign is $40,000. For statistically reliable incremental sales lift reporting from third-party campaigns, the minimum is $25,000 in media spend with a minimum four-week flight. For first-party IROaS reporting directly from major retailers, minimums typically start higher, often at $100,000 or more depending on the platform.
The Bigger Picture
RMN offsite media is growing faster than on-site spending for a simple reason: the shoppers brands need to reach are not spending their time inside retailer apps. They are watching CTV, listening to streaming audio, scrolling their phones, and reading news articles. The retailers know this, and they are building the infrastructure to follow those shoppers with precision.
The brands that will have a structural advantage heading into 2027 planning cycles are the ones building that muscle now, before offsite becomes a standard line item in every competitor’s plan.
What does your current offsite strategy look like relative to your in-store distribution footprint? That gap is worth measuring.
Ready to Build Your Offsite Strategy?
DIGITS works with CPG brands at every stage of retail media maturity, from first offsite activation to full-funnel omnichannel programs across Target, Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, and regional grocers. Contact us at dave@digitsagency.com or visit digitsagency.com to start the conversation.
About DIGITS Agency
DIGITS is an omnichannel retail media agency specializing in Target, regional grocers, and alcohol retail media. As a Target Managed Services partner, Roundel Media Studio Certified agency and Walmart Connect Partner, DIGITS helps CPG brands navigate retail media with strategic planning, hands-on campaign management, and proprietary analytics. Learn more at www.digitsagency.com.
Dave Glaza, Founder & CEO of DIGITS, remains committed to bringing digital capabilities to physical stores!
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