For years, digital marketing revolved around scale, how many impressions, how many clicks, how many eyeballs. But as consumer behaviour fragments and privacy regulations tighten, the industry is undergoing a seismic shift. The new centre of gravity is commerce media: formats that combine audience targeting with transactional intent, delivering measurable outcomes at the point of purchase.
Retail media, connected TV (CTV), and short-form video are leading this transformation. According to the latest forecasts, retail media is growing at 17.4% annually, outpacing both search and display advertising. These channels are not just growing, they’re redefining what effective marketing looks like.
Retail media networks (RMNs) have evolved from niche offerings into strategic platforms. Giants like Amazon and Walmart have paved the way, but now every business with first-party transactional data, from airlines to banks, is launching its own ad network.
At Converge Africa 2026, the “Retail Media Build-A-Thon” and sessions on “Retail Media Partnerships That Actually Deliver” showcase how brands are leveraging these networks to reach high-intent shoppers with precision. The key advantage? Advertisers can target consumers at the moment of decision, using rich behavioural data and closed-loop measurement to optimise spend.
CTV is no longer a fringe format; it’s the future of video advertising. As audiences migrate from linear TV to streaming platforms, CTV offers marketers the ability to combine the emotional impact of television with the targeting capabilities of digital.
CTV is one of the highest-confidence growth areas, with spend projected to reach nearly $23 billion in the US alone. At Converge Africa 2026, sessions on “Tech That Grows Profit Now” and “Digital Retail & Omnichannel” explore how CTV is being integrated into omnichannel strategies, driving both brand awareness and direct response.
Consumer attention has decisively shifted to short-form video. Formats like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts deliver 2.5x more engagement than long-form content, with ad spend projected to hit $111 billion in 2025.
But this isn’t just about entertainment, it’s about commerce. Social platforms are rapidly integrating shoppable features, turning video feeds into dynamic storefronts. Converge Africa 2026’s “Campaign Hackathon” and “The Rise of Conversational Commerce” sessions highlight how brands are using short-form video to drive discovery, engagement, and conversion, all in one scroll.
The rise of commerce media demands a reallocation of budgets and a rethinking of strategy. Traditional channels like search and display, while still valuable, are losing share to formats that offer richer data, stronger intent signals, and clearer ROI.
Marketers must build integrated strategies that connect retail media, CTV, and short-form video into a cohesive funnel. This means investing in creative agility, data infrastructure, and measurement frameworks like Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) and incrementality testing.
The future of digital marketing is not just about messaging, it’s about commerce. As retail media, CTV, and short-form video converge, they are transforming the media landscape into a marketplace: one where relevance, intent, and transaction are seamlessly aligned.
Converge Africa 2026 offers a glimpse into this future. The brands that thrive will be those that embrace commerce media not as a trend, but as a strategic foundation. The question is no longer “where should we advertise?”, it’s “where do our customers decide?”.
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