30 September 2025

Retail in 2025: How In-App Advertising is Changing Marketing

Retail in 2025 creates new rules of the game for brands. High competition, active integration of mobile technologies, and the growth of e-commerce are forcing strategies to adapt to trends in order to retain consumer attention.

The article outlines the trends retail in 2025 has encountered, provides statistics from Deloitte and Sensor Tower, and details the role of mobile advertising in retail in 2025.

You will learn how to effectively promote a product through in-app tools and what opportunities the BYYD mobile platform offers.

Retail in 2025: statistics and trends

According to the Amazon retail media market study by Sensor Tower:

Amazon leads in the number of advertisers — more than 9,500, which is almost 9 times more than the nearest competitor.

The main investments came from CPG brands and technology companies. Most of the spending was focused on categories such as personal care products, electronics, food and beverages.

Monthly ad spend fluctuations on Amazon were driven by advertisers, not holidays.

Most ad creatives followed a familiar conversion-focused formula. They included discounts, coupons, and a “Shop Now” button. This confirms that retail in 2025 is performance-oriented.

Few brands launched campaigns across multiple channels. This leaves room for those who want to stand out with more comprehensive campaigns.

The consulting company Deloitte in its Global Powers of Retailing report highlighted what defines retail in 2025:

Retailers are facing an unstable economic situation, so achieving profitability requires complex strategic planning and flexibility. Over the past few years, consumer demand has remained weak.

According to forecasts, global economic growth over the next 5 years will be only 3.1% — the lowest figure in decades. A comprehensive approach is needed to manage inventory, supply chains, staff training, and cost control. This will reduce expenses and increase overall efficiency.

Retail in 2025 relies on advanced technologies (AI, AR/VR, metaverse). Innovations help create a personalized experience, which boosts customer loyalty and business development. According to NVIDIA research, more than 72% of retailers using AI reduced operational costs, and 69% increased annual revenue.

Retailers are increasingly offering trade-in, buyback, and upcycling programs. This allows customers to return used products in exchange for discounts on new purchases while recycling old products.

According to statistics, 66% of Gen Z and millennial buyers prefer brands focused on sustainability. Environmental concerns are the top priority when choosing a brand, along with emotional and social factors.

Retailers are increasingly experimenting with integrating advertising into mobile app functionality. This allows them to measure shopper behavior and assess campaign effectiveness.

The role of programmatic advertising in retail

Retailers promote products in various ways:

Discounts, sales, 1+1, coupons.
Ad placements directly on retailers’ platforms.
Promotion through email and push notifications.
Joint promotions with other brands or influencers.
In-app advertising: targeting users of mobile applications, for example, through BYYD.

One of the main promotion channels today is mobile advertising through programmatic — a method of buying, selling, and placing ads using automated systems. This allows creatives to be shown to the most interested users.

The placement format can be anything — from animated banners with game mechanics to video creatives.

How in-app advertising strengthens digital strategies of retail brands

Programmatic advertising strengthens retail in 2025 because it allows brands to precisely work with the audience at each stage of the funnel — from increasing awareness to driving purchases.

In addition, programmatic mechanics provide flexible real-time campaign optimization and transparent analytics. Let’s take a closer look at mobile advertising opportunities.

Targeting

Programmatic allows targeting by three main parameters:

Socio-demographics
Geolocation
User behavior

Targeting by socio-demographic criteria considers gender, age, income level, education, marital status, children, profession.

Geo-targeting shows ads to users from a specific country, region, and city. The BYYD mobile platform also offers SuperGeo technology. It helps attract audiences at the moment of potential purchase — when the user is physically near the point of sale. Retail in 2025 requires such marketing tools, as it makes advertising as relevant and effective as possible.

For example, to promote a spring giveaway in a shopping mall, the BYYD team used geo-targeting. Ads were shown to those near the mall who were also interested in fashion, shopping, electronics, etc.

To reach the target audience, mobile specialists also set up interests of potential clients. For instance, in the case of the Korzinka brand, banners targeted users who like entertainment, shopping, technology and education.

Additionally, BYYD allows targeting by device type, mobile provider, device manufacturer, and operating system.

Optimization

To improve promotion results, BYYD mobile specialists conduct daily optimization based on the platform’s statistics in combination with Yandex Metrica. They select sites with low traffic and add them to the Black List.

Then they connect new apps and evaluate their effectiveness. This allows focusing impressions on platforms that show the best results.

Wide range of banner formats

In-app advertising via programmatic allows for the use of various creatives for promotion — from video banners to interactive rich media with game mechanics.

The most common formats include:

Fullscreen banner.
Rich Media — interactive format with animation, video, audio, and game elements.
Video. The Video Interaction format, which combines a video with Rich Media and Fullscreen banner, is gaining popularity.

Landing page development opportunity

In addition to promotion, the BYYD team can create a unique landing page for the advertising campaign. Landing pages increase conversion due to individual adaptation and a clear presentation of the product or service’s benefits.

Custom landing pages enhance ad effectiveness, helping quickly deliver the value proposition to the client and drive purchases. This is exactly the approach that retail in 2025 demands.

Brand Safety approach

The BYYD mobile platform cares about promotion safety. It uses a Brand Safety approach that includes:

Multilayer verification of ad placement platforms.
Traffic quality assessment with special trackers.
Creating White and Black lists.
Participating in auctions only with verified devices.

How BYYD evaluates campaign performance

First, mobile specialists analyze metrics such as average time on site, bounce rate, click-to-session conversion rate, CTR.

Second, Brand Lift research helps evaluate mobile campaign results. The survey is conducted in two stages. First, specialists determine brand awareness among the audience that did not see the ad banners. Then — among those who did. Device ID allows distinguishing between users.

Comparing results helps understand how in-app promotion influenced brand trust and awareness among potential clients.

Programmatic advertising significantly impacts retail in 2025. Mobile advertising provides precise targeting, a personalized approach, and flexible real-time optimization.

This makes programmatic an essential tool for retail, especially in conditions of high competition and the growing importance of mobile traffic.