How CMOs can turn retail media spend into predictable, incremental growth with 60% more accuracy

For CMOs, ballooning media spend budgets raise four urgent questions:

• How can you prove ROI?

• Are you able to react fast to change?

• Are you able to stay consistent while personalizing? 

• Can you scale only what works?

This article shows how Zappi delivers the predictive clarity to answer these questions and make your job easier.

TL;DR

• Retail media ad spend will hit $62B in the U.S. in 2025 — but measurement lags behind.

• 36% of marketers struggle to prove incrementality, while 44% doubt the accuracy of current methods.

• Creative effectiveness drives ~50% of incremental sales, yet untested creative risks millions.

• Zappi delivers 60% more predictive accuracy, acting as insurance against wasted spend.

• One unified platform + AI Quick Reports in minutes = faster pivots, consistent measurement and scalable results across TV, digital and retail media.

• CMOs can finally prove ROI, react to shifts, stay brand-consistent and scale creative without waste.

U.S. advertisers are on pace to spend over $62 billion in 2025, up $10 billion YoY. Techradar reports global media spend could reach $179 billion in 2025. 

Despite this spend, measurement lag remains a hurdle. As the 2025 State of Retail Media reports: 36% of marketers identified difficulty proving investment incrementality as a top challenge that could lead to decreased investment in retail media.

Another 44% are concerned about the accuracy of their incrementality measurements. According to the State of Retail Media report, incrementality has become the industry consensus for retail media measurement. 

Yet, incrementality is difficult to measure. Further complicating the issue, marketers don’t always agree on what it means.

According to eMarketer, the two most common definitions of incrementality are:

1. New-to-brand conversions: Winning customers who haven’t bought before.

2. Ads beyond organic: Showing up where your products wouldn’t naturally rank.

Others stretch the term to include:

• Ads placed on competitor product pages

• Ads aimed at customers who haven’t bought a specific product yet

• Ads timed to those likely to repurchase

The lack of consistency makes it harder for CMOs to prove true ROI. Which makes it harder to know where to reinvest.

Amazon and Walmart control over 84% of retail spend in 2025. For CMOs, that means most of your spend may already be concentrated here. Yet, placement doesn’t guarantee performance. 

Here are three concerns:

1. Ad real estate is crowded. The more retailers push sponsored placements, the harder it is to stand out.

2. Measurement remains fragmented. Every Retail Media Network (RMN) reports performance differently.

3. Creative is the multiplier. More effective creative can drive outsized ROI without changing your budget. 

Untested creative is the riskiest line item in a retail media plan. In an environment where budgets balloon but measurement lags, only proven creative delivers true incrementality. 

Research shows creative drives half of all sales. This is 2.5 times more than many advertisers think. Creative boosts awareness, recall and emotional connections. Without it, you’re paying for placement that won’t perform.  

Creative is often the single biggest swing factor in campaign ROI. However, testing often comes after spending millions, not before. 

Zappi changes that with:

• 60% more predictive accuracy than traditional pre-testing, so you know which ads will resonate before you scale.

• A system that acts like insurance against wasted spend. You can feel confident creative aligns with a data-backed decision.

• Research that’s been proven with global leaders. For instance, PepsiCo lifted creative effectiveness by 30%, adding hundreds of millions in brand value by running research with Zappi. 

Zappi’s Amplify Advertising System does more than test finished ads. It supports early-stage ideas, storyboards and final cut optimization, speeding up creative development and iteration. 

Every test feeds into a living insight bank creating your own performance norms and benchmarking them against industry standards, so they grow smarter over time. 

The takeaway: You can’t afford to gamble on creative. Predict it, prove it and scale only what works.

Predictive accuracy is powerful. Zappi helps you apply it everywhere, instantly. 

That’s where Zappi stands apart: 

• Unified system: Measure ad effectiveness consistently across TV, digital, social and retail media. No more silos.

• AI Quick Reports: Go from analysis taking days to taking just a few minutes, enabling real-time reallocation of budgets.

• Smarter benchmarks: Ground decisions in fresh, culturally relevant norms rather than stale historical data.

• Cumulative learning: Every test builds your own insight bank, so predictive accuracy compounds with use.

The payoff: Faster decisions, fewer blind spots and the confidence to scale creative that drives both online and in-store revenue.

You don’t need to gamble on creative. With Zappi, CMOs get 60% more predictive accuracy, unified insights across every channel and AI-driven speed to act in real time. Prove incrementality, scale only what works and turn retail media into predictable, incremental growth.

See how Zappi’s Advertising platform gives CMOs the predictive clarity to de-risk million-dollar creative bets.