Grocery retail media networks: Kroger, Albertsons, Ahold Delhaize, Tesco, Nectar360, Carrefour and more, compared

Each row links to the network's profile where one is planned. "n/d" means we found no public, dated source by the research cut-off.

Three things make a retailer's data valuable to an advertiser: how often people buy, how many purchases the retailer can tie to a person, and how many brands sell through it. Grocery scores high on all three at once.

Frequency. People shop for food every week. Ahold Delhaize USA's banners alone see more than 26 million shoppers a week (Supermarket News, 21 January 2026). Each trip adds a fresh data point, so segments such as "lapsed buyers of a brand" stay current.

Identification. Loyalty cards turn anonymous tills into named histories. Tesco ties 84% of its transactions to Clubcard (Digiday, 2 December 2025). Carrefour says its French loyalty base reaches one household in two (Unlimitail, 9 September 2026). Across all its markets, Carrefour describes a data lake fed by about 10 billion transactions a year (PPC Land, 6 April 2026).

Breadth of advertisers. A supermarket stocks thousands of brands, and most of them have shopper marketing budgets. The named buyers in 2026 launches show this: Kimberly-Clark on Kroger's Google link (PPC Land, 24 March 2026) and Keurig Dr Pepper on Albertsons' (PPC Land, 28 April 2026).

Other verticals win on one axis. Pharmacies hold deeper health signals but cannot use prescription data for ads, as the pharmacy retail media networks page explains. Convenience stores see shoppers even more often, but baskets are small; see convenience store retail media networks. Grocery is the vertical that combines all three.

Kroger builds. Kroger Precision Marketing is powered by Kroger's own data science unit, 84.51° (PPC Land, 25 March 2026). In March 2026 it became the retail partner in Google's Commerce Media Suite. Brands can now buy Kroger segments on YouTube and see sales reported by SKU inside DV360. Profit at Kroger Precision Marketing grew 24% in the second quarter of 2026, according to Digiday as quoted by Osmos (Osmos, 12 October 2026).

Albertsons partners. Albertsons Media Collective uses Criteo's Commerce Max DSP for offsite (PPC Land, January 2024) and joined Google's suite in April 2026. Its store network moved to CRI's software in 2026 (invidis, 18 August 2026). Albertsons does not report the network's revenue (Digiday, 5 October 2026).

Regional chains rent the engine. H-E-B appears as a Topsort case study, Hy-Vee among Epsilon Retail Media customer logos, and Wakefern among Osmos logos (Topsort; CitrusAd; Osmos, all accessed 9 November 2026). Others rent a whole store and ad stack from Instacart. The trade-offs between these models are in retail media network platforms compared.

Food Lion does not sell media under its own brand. It is one of the US banners of Ahold Delhaize, alongside Stop & Shop, Giant Food, The GIANT Company and Hannaford (Ahold Delhaize, accessed 9 November 2026). Ads on Food Lion's site and in its stores are sold by the group's network, presented as Ahold Delhaize Retail Media (AD Retail Media, accessed 9 November 2026).

Food Lion runs 1,110 stores (Ahold Delhaize, accessed 9 November 2026). Across all banners, the network reaches more than 26 million shoppers a week. In January 2026 the group was expected to launch Edge, a custom-built platform for onsite display, sponsored search and in-store screens (Supermarket News, 21 January 2026). A brand that wants Food Lion shoppers therefore buys the Ahold Delhaize network and targets the Food Lion banner within it.

Tesco and Sainsbury's built their networks on their loyalty schemes, Clubcard and Nectar. Tesco's network runs on Clubcard data through dunnhumby (Digiday, 2 December 2025). In October 2026 it launched Ad Manager, a self-service platform that starts with sponsored products and will add display and video (Grocery Trader, 9 October 2026). A Costa trial on Tesco Express screens reported a 47% uplift among customers new to the product (company claim, same source).

Nectar360 sells media for Sainsbury's and Argos to 24 million customers (Nectar360, accessed 9 November 2026). Its July 2026 certification covers offsite display and video on Meta, DV360 and YouTube (Nectar360, 1 July 2026). Albert Heijn's earlier certification, by contrast, covered onsite products.

Continental Europe is moving towards shared networks. Unlimitail, Carrefour's joint venture with Publicis, says it unites 40 retail partners and 250 million addressable customers (Unlimitail, accessed 9 November 2026; company claims). Coopérative U, a group of more than 2,000 French stores, will sell its digital inventory through Unlimitail from January 2027 (Unlimitail, October 2026). Unlimitail says the combined network will cover nearly 35% of the French grocery market (company claim, same source).

Elsewhere, grocers pick a demand partner. Lidl chose Criteo as exclusive demand partner for sponsored products on Lidl.de in May 2026 (Criteo, 19 May 2026). Albert Heijn, Ahold Delhaize's Dutch chain, chose to prove its numbers first and was the first network certified under IAB Europe's programme (PPC Land, 27 September 2025).

Grocery has the cleanest closed-loop measurement in retail media, because so many purchases carry a loyalty ID. Three methods now dominate:

1. SKU-level attribution online and offline. Kroger and Albertsons report sales by SKU inside DV360, so a brand sees which products sold after a YouTube ad (PPC Land, 28 April 2026).
2. Store-level tests. Albertsons compares stores that show a campaign on screens with matched stores that do not (Supermarket News, 21 January 2026). It reported a 14% sales lift for one Mondelēz campaign (company claim, Modern Retail, 20 January 2026).
3. Independent audit. Albert Heijn and Nectar360 had their metrics audited by ABC under IAB Europe's programme (Nectar360, 1 July 2026).

The standards behind these methods are summarised in retail media measurement standards explained. Store screens bring their own counting rules, covered in in-store retail media.

1. What share of sales carries a loyalty ID? This sets how much of your sales the network can actually measure. Tesco's answer is 84%; ask every network for its figure.
2. Which DSPs can use the data? Kroger and Albertsons now work in DV360; others require their own DSP or a managed buy.
3. How are store screens counted and tested? Ask for the impression formula and whether lift comes from matched control stores.
4. Who audited the metrics? Ask for the audit date, the auditor and the products covered.
5. Who runs the platform, and will it change? Instacart's sale to DoorDash shows that a grocer's technology partner can change owners mid-contract (Instacart, 29 October 2026).

What these networks earn compared with Amazon and Walmart is set out in retail media network revenue benchmarks.

1. Digiday, "Tesco wants to be comparable to traditional media partners" (2 December 2025). https://digiday.com/marketing/u-k-retailer-tesco-wants-advertisers-to-see-it-as-equal-to-any-traditional-media-partner/
2. PPC Land, "Kroger joins Google's Commerce Media Suite to unlock SKU-level sales data on YouTube" (24 March 2026). https://ppc.land/kroger-joins-googles-commerce-media-suite-to-unlock-sku-level-sales-data-on-youtube/
3. PPC Land, "MetaRouter: the hidden engine inside Google's Kroger ad deal" (25 March 2026). https://ppc.land/metarouter-the-hidden-engine-inside-googles-kroger-ad-deal/
4. PPC Land, "Albertsons brings grocery shopper data to YouTube via Google's ad suite" (28 April 2026). https://ppc.land/albertsons-brings-grocery-shopper-data-to-youtube-via-googles-ad-suite/
5. PPC Land, "Criteo to power Retail Media for Albertsons Media Collective" (9 January 2024). https://ppc.land/criteo-to-power-retail-media-ecosystem-for-albertsons-media-collective/
6. invidis, "Retail Media: CRI Takes Over Albertsons from Stratacache" (18 August 2026). https://invidis.com/news/2026/08/retail-media-cri-takes-over-albertsons-from-stratacache/
7. Modern Retail, "Albertsons to put digital screens for ads in 800-plus stores" (20 January 2026). https://www.modernretail.co/technology/albertsons-is-putting-digital-screens-for-ads-in-more-than-a-third-of-its-stores/
8. Digiday, "Brian Monahan exits Albertsons Media Collective" (5 October 2026). https://digiday.com/marketing/brian-monahan-exits-albertsons-media-collective-amid-leadership-shake-up/
9. Supermarket News, "Grocery retail media enters a new growth phase: report" (21 January 2026). https://www.supermarketnews.com/retail-media/grocery-retail-media-enters-a-new-growth-phase-report
10. Ahold Delhaize, corporate home page and Food Lion brand page (accessed 9 November 2026). https://www.aholddelhaize.com/ and https://www.aholddelhaize.com/brands/food-lion/