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Retail media may be the headline. Marketplace media is the engine
March 6, 2026
Looking beyond impressions? Not all environments influence choice. Explore why marketplace media matters and how carsales delivers proven results.
Retail media is having its moment. Brands want to reach shoppers closer to the point of decision and to monetise the value of their customer relationships.
In Australia, investment is surging from $1B in 2022 to a projected $2.8B by 2027¹, with 67% of advertisers already on board1.
But behind the headline growth sits a truth marketers know
Retail media works best when it lives where decisions get made and not every environment has that leverage.
That leverage doesn’t come from tech alone, it comes from behaviour. Unless a platform genuinely influences choice through availability, comparison or competition, growth will hit a ceiling.
This is why marketplaces matter, they’re not adjacent to the purchase journey, they are the journey.
Driving outcomes all along
Long before “retail media” became an industry term, carsales was already delivering its outcome. Not as a rebrand, but as the natural outcome of being a place where Australians buy cars.
Today that means:
• Qualified, logged-in audiences
• Tusted first-party data
• Closed-loop attribution
• Audience extension
• Marketplace monetisation
While many retail networks are building toward the promise of outcomes, we have already built, proven and scaled ours for years. For us, it isn’t scale for scale’s sake, it’s marketplace monetisation driven by real decision behaviour.
What scale means for your results
Simply put, scale only matters when it delivers outcomes you can measure and at carsales, that means connecting brands to one of the largest authenticated automotive audiences in the country. More than 15+ million logged-in members on average per month2 generate billions of behavioural signals every quarter³, showing how preferences shift, how competition forms and what ultimately converts.
Almost 60 per cent of our audience doesn’t visit competitor platforms4, giving advertisers access to buyers they can’t reach on similar platforms. This isn’t just activity, with a vehicle sold through carsales roughly every 18 seconds5, this means every impression and interaction can be tied to real outcomes. All of this is supported by first-party data and closed-loop attribution.
Not all media environments are built equal
Latest research from Australia's Car Buyer Report shows that automotive decisions aren't quick, most car buyers spend months researching before purchasing⁶. They’re high-consideration, often involve multiple sellers and play out over months. That means the signals that matter are the ones that show intent and influence choice, which don’t always happen in a single moment and not every media environment captures those signals from start to finish. When they don’t, optimisation relies on proxy metrics instead of real indicators of decision-making.
Research backs this up, showing that buyers are more likely to use carsales at every stage of the journey, discovery, evaluation, negotiation and conversion⁶. That’s the structural advantage a marketplace like carsales can bring to retail media.
Making retail media work harder for you
Retail media is now a standard part of the automotive mix, but the real opportunity comes when it’s paired with marketplaces. Without that, brands can miss the signals that influence decisions and the outcomes that prove impact.
The top retail media objectives of advertisers include increasing sales (64 per cent), acquiring new customers (52 per cent) and supporting promotions (49 per cent)7. Marketplace media delivers on all three, powered by a qualified in-market audience, real-time competitive insights and outcome metrics that finance teams can trust.
More than that, it gives brands flexibility. A marketplace strategy lets you pivot, scale and actively influence behaviour, not just measure activity.
The takeaway
Retail media may be the headline. Marketplace media is the engine, where behaviour, competition, and decisions converge.
Technology, targeting and attribution only matter if the environment genuinely influences choice and the environments with the most leverage are marketplaces, where shoppers compare, compete and decide.
If you optimise for impressions, you measure activity, if you optimise for decisions such as search share, view share, lead share, CAPI verified actions, you put yourself in the position to drive growth.
Want to learn more? Reach out to our team to discuss adding a marketplace always-on strategy to your brand’s marketing mix
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Sourcing
1. IAB, Retail Media State of the Nation Report 2024.
2. carsales internal data, Monthly Average Total Members, 2025 (15.17M)
3. Google Analytics (1 Oct 25 – 31 Dec 2025). Metric: 3.6B+ user behavioural actions (views, scroll depth, enquiries, clicks). Behavioural actions refer to interactions on our sites such as views, scroll depth, enquiries and clicks.
4. Ipsos iris, November 2025, 14+ PC/Laptop/Smartphone/Tablet, Brand Group, Exclusive Audience.
5. carsales internal survey data collected from dealers and private sellers, 1 Jul 2024 – 30 Jun 2025.
6. Australia's Car Buyer Report 2026, n=2,008. n=2,008. Q14. Which specific car rating,comparison/ aggregator or review/ independent car valuation website / app have some influence?
7. IAB Australia Retail Media State of the Nation 2024 (n=134advertising decision-makers or influencers with experience in retail media). Q: What have been the objectives of the Retail Media activities you’ve been involved with over the past year?
What scale means for your results
Simply put, scale only matters when it delivers outcomes you can measure and at carsales, that means connecting brands to one of the largest authenticated automotive audiences in the country. More than 15+ million logged-in members on average per month2 generate billions of behavioural signals every quarter³, showing how preferences shift, how competition forms and what ultimately converts.
Almost 60 per cent of our audience doesn’t visit competitor platforms4, giving advertisers access to buyers they can’t reach on similar platforms. This isn’t just activity, with a vehicle sold through carsales roughly every 18 seconds5, this means every impression and interaction can be tied to real outcomes. All of this is supported by first-party data and closed-loop attribution.
Not all media environments are built equal
Latest research from Australia's Car Buyer Report shows that automotive decisions aren't quick, most car buyers spend months researching before purchasing⁶. They’re high-consideration, often involve multiple sellers and play out over months. That means the signals that matter are the ones that show intent and influence choice, which don’t always happen in a single moment and not every media environment captures those signals from start to finish. When they don’t, optimisation relies on proxy metrics instead of real indicators of decision-making.
Research backs this up, showing that buyers are more likely to use carsales at every stage of the journey, discovery, evaluation, negotiation and conversion⁶. That’s the structural advantage a marketplace like carsales can bring to retail media.
Making retail media work harder for you
Retail media is now a standard part of the automotive mix, but the real opportunity comes when it’s paired with marketplaces. Without that, brands can miss the signals that influence decisions and the outcomes that prove impact.
The top retail media objectives of advertisers include increasing sales (64 per cent), acquiring new customers (52 per cent) and supporting promotions (49 per cent)7. Marketplace media delivers on all three, powered by a qualified in-market audience, real-time competitive insights and outcome metrics that finance teams can trust.
More than that, it gives brands flexibility. A marketplace strategy lets you pivot, scale and actively influence behaviour, not just measure activity.
The takeaway
Retail media may be the headline. Marketplace media is the engine, where behaviour, competition, and decisions converge.
Technology, targeting and attribution only matter if the environment genuinely influences choice and the environments with the most leverage are marketplaces, where shoppers compare, compete and decide.
If you optimise for impressions, you measure activity, if you optimise for decisions such as search share, view share, lead share, CAPI verified actions, you put yourself in the position to drive growth.
Want to learn more? Reach out to our team to discuss adding a marketplace always-on strategy to your brand’s marketing mix
Sourcing
1. IAB, Retail Media State of the Nation Report 2024.
2. carsales internal data, Monthly Average Total Members, 2025 (15.17M)
3. Google Analytics (1 Oct 25 – 31 Dec 2025). Metric: 3.6B+ user behavioural actions (views, scroll depth, enquiries, clicks). Behavioural actions refer to interactions on our sites such as views, scroll depth, enquiries and clicks.
4. Ipsos iris, November 2025, 14+ PC/Laptop/Smartphone/Tablet, Brand Group, Exclusive Audience.
5. carsales internal survey data collected from dealers and private sellers, 1 Jul 2024 – 30 Jun 2025.
6. Australia's Car Buyer Report 2026, n=2,008. n=2,008. Q14. Which specific car rating,comparison/ aggregator or review/ independent car valuation website / app have some influence?
7. IAB Australia Retail Media State of the Nation 2024 (n=134advertising decision-makers or influencers with experience in retail media). Q: What have been the objectives of the Retail Media activities you’ve been involved with over the past year?
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