In 2025, Retail media networks are emerging as a key trend in the convenience store sector, with retailers of all sizes actively exploring how to integrate this strategy into their operations.
“C-stores engaged in retail media have created an advertising platform for their brand partners that allows advertisers to market to customers using first-party data and targeted experiences,” explained Mike Templeton, VP of digital strategy for NexChapter. “When a retailer brings all these pieces of media inventory together – including on-site and off-site placements, as well as in-store digital experiences – the collective advertising platform is described as a retail media network (RMN).”
Templeton pointed out that retail media has three main benefactors: the retailer, the advertiser and the consumer.
“Retailers collect new revenue from selling media investments to advertising partners,” Templeton said. “Advertisers grow their sales at the retailer by executing retail media campaigns. Consumers get value from retail media through increased visibility to promotions and discounts advertised in connection with their favorite store.”
Irving, Texas-based 7-Eleven launched Gulp Media Network in 2022, America’s largest coast-to-coast immediate consumption RMN.
“It is designed to leverage 7-Eleven’s customer purchase and behavioral data from 100 million loyalty members, or approximately one in four Americans,” said Mario Mijares, VP of marketing, loyalty and monetization platforms, 7-Eleven Inc. “We engage shoppers across the full journey via programmatic display, video, audio, connected TV, social ads, customer relationship management email, Gulp Radio (in-store audio), in-store video and gas pump TV.”
This omnichannel platform allows 7-Eleven to offer customers “personalized, timely and highly effective messaging to influence real-time decisions.”
In November 2024, 7-Eleven announced it planned to expand Gulp Radio programming to 5,000 stores across the U.S. by the end of 2024 and more than 12,000 stores by the end of 2025.
“Gulp Radio was a natural next step because 85% of retail media transactions still happen in-store, and we saw a major opportunity to influence the shopper right at the point of purchase,” Mijares said. “It creates a dynamic in-store atmosphere using targeted audio messaging powered by QSIC’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform. The great part of Gulp Radio is that everyone in the store hears it, no matter what section they’re in, and given 7-Eleven’s small store footprint, it’s easy for shoppers to quickly navigate to pick up that impulse product they just heard about.”
Products featured on Gulp Radio have gained an average sales lift of 3-6%, and a recent Slurpee campaign resulted in an 11% increase in units sold, Mijares pointed out. 7-Eleven is now tracking to have the Gulp Radio program fully scaled across 13,000 locations by the end of July, making Gulp Radio one of North America’s largest commercial radio networks.
“Consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands benefit from a closed-loop, data-driven platform that ties impressions directly to transactions,” Mijares said. “With tools like our C-Shopper analytics platform, Brainfreeze Collective research panel and Lab Stores, we offer partners a full-funnel ecosystem — from insight generation to experimentation to media activation.”
7-Eleven’s platform enables advertisers to test new products, refine messaging in real time, and effectively reach highly targeted audiences at scale.
“Most importantly, we deliver measurable return on ad spend (ROAS) and incremental ROAS (iROAS), proving the value of each campaign,” Mijares said.
For 7-Eleven, the Gulp Media Network improves its relationships with brand partners while also helping it better deliver fast, personalized convenience. What’s more, the network gives 7-Eleven an avenue to further highlight its own proprietary offerings, such as Slurpee and Big Bite Hot Dogs.
“By using our own media to promote new products, we’ve seen a measurable impact on trial and conversion, particularly when targeting impulse occasions,” Mijares said.
Before launching its RMN, taking the time to lay the groundwork was key and involved investments in what the chain calls its Immediate Consumption Ecosystem (ICE), a suite of tools that includes the aforementioned C-Shopper, Brainfreeze Collective and Lab Stores.
“These tools give us rich behavioral and attitudinal data, and the infrastructure to test, learn and scale quickly,” Mijares said. “Just as important has been our continuous focus on growing our loyalty program to 100 million members; that scale of first-party data is the foundation for Gulp Media Network. Having this foundation in place has allowed us to operationalize personalization and campaign measurement at scale and make it easy for brand partners to activate campaigns without a heavy lift.”
EG America, headquartered in Westborough, Mass., announced the launch of its RMN in April, in partnership with Axonet.
“With consumer preferences and expectations changing at breakneck speed, we knew it was critical to reimagine and deploy an innovative digital customer experience for our customers,” said Whitney Johnson, SVP, Marketing, EG America. “A critical piece of that new digital ecosystem is our RMN, as it supports our vision to deliver meaningful offers and content to our customers.”
As it looked to lay the groundwork for its own program, EG America, with 1,500 retail locations in the U.S., recognized that to bring an RMN to market quickly and effectively it would need to engage a partner.
“We partnered with Axonet, who provides us with the critical infrastructure and teams that allowed us to launch our RMN capabilities incredibly quickly — in less than four months — and with high quality,” Johnson said.
The RMN allows EG America to reach customers at a number of touch points throughout their shopping journey, including off-site via programmatic, rich mobile media, connected TV, streaming audio and paid social; in-store through digital signage and audio; and on-site with mobile app and loyalty program.
“Our brands deploy engaging static, video and audio content throughout these channels,” Johnson said. “Advertisers can also select and tune which channels to activate, and we continuously measure campaign performance and help our advertisers optimize campaign spend.”
EG America expects the RMN to bring benefits to stores across the brand as well as to its advertising partners.
“We believe that all boats rise with a rising tide,” Johnson said. “At the end of the day, the goal of our RMN is to move more units and drive category growth – both for EG America and for our brand partners.”
Getting Started With RMNs
Of course, most chains don’t have the resources that big national behemoths like 7-Eleven and EG America have at their disposal, but that doesn’t mean they can’t also benefit from launching an RMN. For smaller chains interested in launching their own RMN, Mijares recommended focusing on building a trove of first-party data through a loyalty program, and to start with “a few high-impact media touch points” such as in-store screens or radio, and to find partners where it makes sense.
“Even small chains can punch above their weight, if they’re offering unique inventory, clear attribution and value for both the shopper and advertiser,” Mijares said.
“We have three pieces of advice,” said EG America’s Johnson. “1.) Make sure your category management team is engaged with the RMN; 2.) Clearly define, understand and spotlight your chain’s value proposition when positioning RMN assets; and 3.) Partner with experts.
The very first step in launching an RMN is to ensure your chain has access to a collection of customer data, our experts agreed. If that’s not already available, laying that framework through a loyalty program, etc. will be key.
“Customer data is the foundation of retail media,” Templeton said. “It allows advertisers to target the right customers, and it enables retailers to measure the impact of campaigns. Having a loyalty program in place is often a core component, as it facilitates both the activation of customers and the analysis of the promotion.”
On the measurement front, Templeton pointed out that the bottom-line metrics impacted by retail media include things c-stores are already actively measuring, such as in-store sales and customer lifetime value.
“If campaigns aren’t moving units, nothing else matters much,” Templeton added. “Leveraging test and control groups is highly effective at understanding incrementality. As retailers optimize across campaigns they may use platform-related measures like open rates, clickthrough rates or return on ad spend.”
As retailers enter the RMN space, the most strategic players are careful to avoid common missteps. Templeton emphasized, for example, that while retail media does create an alternative revenue stream for c-store retailers this cannot be the sole purpose of launching an RMN.
“Companies who enter this space must make the shift from simply being a physical goods retailer to becoming a media publisher selling advertising,” Templeton said. “Ultimately ‘retail media’ is a new product to be sold. However, advertisers won’t be very interested in buying unless they can tie campaigns to in-store sales.”
A chain’s RMN, after all, should be helping to influence more purchases at the point-of-sale.
That said, while data integration and being able to measure results are critical components to a successful RMN, retailers shouldn’t let the goal of perfection slow them down, Templeton said.
“Talk to your partners and assess where their interests lie, then align on a plan rooted in transparent, collaborative measurement. You can always improve this over time,” he advised.
Retailers will also need to decide what areas their RMN will initially include.
“For years retailers have been investing in digitizing relationships with mobile apps and marketing platforms. These same investments are now being extended through retail media activation as they become advertising inventory that CPG brands can leverage,” Templeton said.
He noted there are three main categories of retail media formats that chains can utilize. The first includes on-site, which includes areas such as ad placements within a retailer’s owned digital properties, including a c-store chain’s website, mobile app, loyalty program and messaging channels. The second includes in-store, which involves digital or physical ad placements within the four walls of the c-store location (or forecourt), such as digital signage, fuel pump screens or in-store radio.
The third area is off-site, which involves ad placements “outside a retailer’s ecosystem, typically across the open web, social media or connected TV,” Templeton explained.
“Activating fuel dispenser screens has been particularly intriguing in convenience due to their ability to engage many consumers who may not otherwise make a trip into the store,” he said.
Once c-stores have the groundwork in place in terms of data, partnerships and scope of their RMN, they’ll need to attract CPG companies to invest in advertising on the platform.
“Advertisers are facing many headwinds in the wake of privacy legislation, a fractured media landscape and shifting practices in advertising targeting,” Templeton pointed out. “Retailers have rich first-party data sets, means to activate customers and close proximity between marketing and nearby in-store purchases. This juxtaposition of advertising challenges and retailers’ newfound capabilities make retail media an attractive proposition for CPG brands looking to grow their business at retail.”
The Future of RMNs
The rise of RMNs is set to fundamentally change the convenience stores landscape.
“RMNs represent a critical shift for c-stores. How chains and brands engage with our impulse shoppers will change, greatly improving the customer experience and driving better outcomes for all constituents,” Johnson said.
Mijares agreed that the emergence of RMNs is transforming convenience stores into powerful marketing platforms.
“It’s helping redefine how we engage with shoppers and opening up new revenue streams for retailers of all sizes. For the industry, it’s a shift toward measurable, performance-driven marketing that’s tailored to the speed, behavior and immediacy of the convenience channel,” Mijares said. “As more retailers embrace this, I think we’ll see a renaissance of innovation and trial across the aisle.”
Templeton pointed out that to-date, most c-stores have developed digital marketing capabilities specifically for their own use, a trend that is now shifting.
“Retail media introduces the opportunity to open up access to advertisers. The physical store environment will be interesting to watch, especially as retailers evaluate whether to incorporate more technology — like digital window signs, electronic shelf labels or other in-store digital screens,” Templeton said. “With all of these assets available, I envision c-stores building bigger integrated campaigns with their CPG partners, allowing for a more immersive brand experience across both in-store activation and digital marketing. The ability for any advertising brand to more effectively engage their customers is certainly something worth paying for.”
