J. G. Navarro
Research expert covering advertising and marketing with a focus on South America
Get in touch with us nowAlready in mid-2023, Brazil's online retail media ad spending was expected to skyrocket by 550 percent over the past year, reaching approximately 2.6 billion Brazilian reals. For comparison, according to another source, Brazil's ad expenditure in 2022 amounted to about 69 billion reals. The momentum may have just started. Projections set the Portuguese-speaking country as the second-fastest-growing digital retail media market worldwide in 2024, with a forecast growth rate of over 43 percent. The first place, Mexico, was predicted to see its investments in this channel increase by 45 percent.
Brazil's top digital retail media networks (RMNs)
During a 2023 survey, almost three-quarters of responding ad agencies in Brazil reported working with online retail media at Amazon. Nearly two-thirds mentioned Mercado Libre, reflecting the hegemony of this quasi-duopoly in Brazilian e-commerce. That year, ad spending on Amazon.com.br reached an estimated 36.6 million U.S. dollars – in 2020, the value amounted to less than 10 percent of that. Meanwhile, the ad expenditure on MercadoLivre.com.br surpassed 60 million dollars in 2023, or roughly 80 percent more than in the previous year. A third platform mentioned by the agencies, Americanas, has been on a rockier road with advertisers, as its controlling holding disclosed a multi-billion-dollar inconsistency in its financials and filed for bankruptcy protection.Challenges and motivations for the Brazilian market
The aforementioned 2023 study also asked whether manufacturers, retailers, and agencies in Brazil work with digital retail media. The shares of players answering "yes" to that question varied between 21 and 31 percent, thus revealing the potential for the channel's expansion in the South American country. Among the most resistant group, manufacturers, half stated allocating no more than one-tenth of their marketing budget to retail media. Around 30 percent either did not know how much they spent on it or did not invest in the subsegment at all.Lack of familiarity with the channel and staff specialized in it were the main reasons for staying away from online retail media, according to that survey. However, responding retailers stood out as the group willing to change that as soon as possible: About half planned to start working with the medium in 2023 already, while almost one-fourth intended to do it in 2024. Similarly, ad agencies in Brazil looked forward to betting on digital retail media to improve sales and increase brand awareness. The projected rise in spending and the poll results indicate that this online channel is quickly changing Brazil's digital ad environment and requires advertisers and marketplaces alike to catch up and meet consumers where they increasingly window-shop the most: the internet.
