Retail Media’s Expansion Beyond the Aisle is Forcing Marketers to Rethink the Entire Funnel
A year ago, retail media meant building e-commerce platforms and optimizing sponsored product listings.
Today, the category has sprawled into connected TV, offsite partnerships, and even live sports apps – anywhere a retailer’s first-party data can follow a consumer. Dick’s Sporting Goods, for instance, now reaches families through its app while they watch their kids play soccer, far from any store shelf.
“It’s certainly well beyond just what’s in the Dick’s Sporting Goods store and retailer, and it’s expanded well beyond that,” said Scott Pawloski, chief revenue officer at GSTV (Gas Station TV), in this video interview with Beet.TV.
Walmart’s TV play signals the new logic
The clearest signal of retail media’s ambitions came when Walmart acquired Vizio in December 2024. A grocery giant buying a television manufacturer seemed odd until you understood the strategy: connect viewing behavior to shopping behavior, then close the loop on attribution.
“You think, why would Walmart buy a TV? But that’s their ability to take and realize the purchases don’t just happen while you’re at the aisle,” Pawloski said. “It’s all through the funnel, and sitting in front of your TV and watching an ad can relate and be able to tie that back to the attribution once you see that person in the actual Walmart aisle.”
According to WARC’s Future of Commerce Media 2026 report, global retail media spend is forecast to reach $223.4 billion in 2027, accounting for 15.2% of total worldwide ad spending. But growth is slowing, and outside Amazon, the category’s expansion rate is expected to fall to 9.8% in 2027 – the lowest since WARC began tracking it.
The gas pump as commerce catalyst
GSTV operates video screens at fuel pumps across the United States, reaching 115 million unique adults monthly at roughly 29,000 locations. The company positions itself not as retail media but as “retail adjacent” – a distinction Pawloski argues matters because of what happens after consumers finish fueling.
“A GSTV consumer spends about five times more in an hour to three hours post fuel-up than the average consumer,” he said. “That’s because it sits right in the heart of the epicenter of retail centers. So you see it in the grocery store parking lot or in the parking lot at Walmart, or it’s across the street from a CVS.”
The pitch is that fueling up is a behavioral signal that predicts imminent spending. “Seeing the last ad on GSTV right before you hit the aisle will, in fact, influence what they grab in that aisle,” Pawloski said. The company recently expanded its retail media ambitions through a September 2025 partnership with Casey’s to support the convenience chain’s retail media network with forecourt video.
AI enters the planning process
In June, GSTV became the first external media company to integrate Stagwell’s Agentic Targeting System, an AI-powered audience planning tool built on Palantir Foundry that draws on behavioral, attitudinal, and mobility signals from an identity graph spanning more than 260 million U.S. consumers.
“AI is changing everything, not just in marketing but in the entire world,” Pawloski said. “Having a consumer who’s always on the go, using that data to understand it to build a stronger plan will certainly help agencies and help GSTV help its partners.”
Conagra Brands was named as the first advertiser to use the system for GSTV campaign planning. The partnership reflects a broader industry trend toward using AI not just for optimization but for audience construction – building dynamic segments from real-time signals rather than static demographic buckets.
Attention without the phone
One argument GSTV makes is that the gas pump represents a rare moment of undivided attention in a fragmented media landscape. Consumers need both hands to operate the pump, which means their phones stay in their pockets.
“It’s probably the one moment of the week that you don’t have a phone in your hand,” Pawloski said. “And it’s also a moment in time where you truly have an attention on a screen that you enjoy. Most people when they look at that GSTV screen, they think to themselves, I’d rather have that than not.”
The company also recently selected Shinka as its mediation layer to improve programmatic connectivity across SSPs and DSPs including Equativ, Madhive, Magnite, Nexxen, and OOH Connect. The move is designed to make GSTV inventory easier to buy through the same systems advertisers already use for CTV and digital video.
“For us, getting a proper marketing message at that time, linked to the fact that we know it’s an indicator that they’re going to spend – to say, ‘Hey, maybe go grab this cheeseburger at a certain QSR as you’re getting hungry,’ or, ‘Don’t forget to grab this when you’re in the aisle’ – I think aligns the right moment at the right place in real life with the right consumer,” Pawloski said.
A year ago, retail media meant building e-commerce platforms and optimizing sponsored product listings.
Today, the category has sprawled into connected TV, offsite partnerships, and even live sports apps – anywhere a retailer’s first-party data can follow a consumer. Dick’s Sporting Goods, for instance, now reaches families through its app while they watch their kids play soccer, far from any store shelf.
“It’s certainly well beyond just what’s in the Dick’s Sporting Goods store and retailer, and it’s expanded well beyond that,” said Scott Pawloski, chief revenue officer at GSTV (Gas Station TV), in this video interview with Beet.TV.
Walmart’s TV play signals the new logic
The clearest signal of retail media’s ambitions came when Walmart acquired Vizio in December 2024. A grocery giant buying a television manufacturer seemed odd until you understood the strategy: connect viewing behavior to shopping behavior, then close the loop on attribution.
“You think, why would Walmart buy a TV? But that’s their ability to take and realize the purchases don’t just happen while you’re at the aisle,” Pawloski said. “It’s all through the funnel, and sitting in front of your TV and watching an ad can relate and be able to tie that back to the attribution once you see that person in the actual Walmart aisle.”
According to WARC’s Future of Commerce Media 2026 report, global retail media spend is forecast to reach $223.4 billion in 2027, accounting for 15.2% of total worldwide ad spending. But growth is slowing, and outside Amazon, the category’s expansion rate is expected to fall to 9.8% in 2027 – the lowest since WARC began tracking it.
The gas pump as commerce catalyst
GSTV operates video screens at fuel pumps across the United States, reaching 115 million unique adults monthly at roughly 29,000 locations. The company positions itself not as retail media but as “retail adjacent” – a distinction Pawloski argues matters because of what happens after consumers finish fueling.
“A GSTV consumer spends about five times more in an hour to three hours post fuel-up than the average consumer,” he said. “That’s because it sits right in the heart of the epicenter of retail centers. So you see it in the grocery store parking lot or in the parking lot at Walmart, or it’s across the street from a CVS.”
The pitch is that fueling up is a behavioral signal that predicts imminent spending. “Seeing the last ad on GSTV right before you hit the aisle will, in fact, influence what they grab in that aisle,” Pawloski said. The company recently expanded its retail media ambitions through a September 2025 partnership with Casey’s to support the convenience chain’s retail media network with forecourt video.
AI enters the planning process
In June, GSTV became the first external media company to integrate Stagwell’s Agentic Targeting System, an AI-powered audience planning tool built on Palantir Foundry that draws on behavioral, attitudinal, and mobility signals from an identity graph spanning more than 260 million U.S. consumers.
“AI is changing everything, not just in marketing but in the entire world,” Pawloski said. “Having a consumer who’s always on the go, using that data to understand it to build a stronger plan will certainly help agencies and help GSTV help its partners.”
Conagra Brands was named as the first advertiser to use the system for GSTV campaign planning. The partnership reflects a broader industry trend toward using AI not just for optimization but for audience construction – building dynamic segments from real-time signals rather than static demographic buckets.
Attention without the phone
One argument GSTV makes is that the gas pump represents a rare moment of undivided attention in a fragmented media landscape. Consumers need both hands to operate the pump, which means their phones stay in their pockets.
“It’s probably the one moment of the week that you don’t have a phone in your hand,” Pawloski said. “And it’s also a moment in time where you truly have an attention on a screen that you enjoy. Most people when they look at that GSTV screen, they think to themselves, I’d rather have that than not.”
The company also recently selected Shinka as its mediation layer to improve programmatic connectivity across SSPs and DSPs including Equativ, Madhive, Magnite, Nexxen, and OOH Connect. The move is designed to make GSTV inventory easier to buy through the same systems advertisers already use for CTV and digital video.
“For us, getting a proper marketing message at that time, linked to the fact that we know it’s an indicator that they’re going to spend – to say, ‘Hey, maybe go grab this cheeseburger at a certain QSR as you’re getting hungry,’ or, ‘Don’t forget to grab this when you’re in the aisle’ – I think aligns the right moment at the right place in real life with the right consumer,” Pawloski said.
