Bigeye's Retail Disrupted study of 1,501 US shoppers found that 44% prefer to shop in stores across categories, against 21% who prefer online, and 61% prefer stores for food and drink. Shopper marketing is how a CPG brand plans for that moment of choice: the marketing that reaches people while they're buying, at the shelf, on the retailer's site and in the retailer's own media. Bigeye, the Orlando agency for consumer brands, plans this work through its CPG marketing practice.

That study ran in 2021. The newer numbers below say the store still carries most of the volume, while the retailer's site, app and ad network now decide a growing share of what goes in the cart. This guide covers seven steps for a 2027 plan, in the order Bigeye works them, with the figures behind each one.

Key takeaways

• Bigeye found that 44% of US shoppers prefer stores and 21% prefer online, with 61% preferring stores for food and drink (Retail Disrupted, 2021).

• Bigeye found that 89% of shoppers say seeing, touching or trying a product adds value in store, so the pack and the display still do much of the selling.

• FMI says in-store accounts for about 80% of grocery sales, while NIQ found online drove close to 75% of grocery dollar growth in 2025.

• Walmart says Walmart Connect grew 43% in the US in its fiscal second quarter, excluding VIZIO, so retailer media now belongs in the shopper plan.

• The programs worth repeating are the ones that show incremental sales in the retailer's own purchase data, measured against a control group.

What is shopper marketing?

Shopper marketing is marketing aimed at people while they're in buying mode: at the shelf, on a retailer's site or app, and in the retailer's own media. It covers packaging, displays, sampling, promotions, product pages and retail media, usually planned with one retailer at a time so each program fits that retailer's shoppers and data.

The numbers to plan around

Shopper marketing vs trade marketing

Trade marketing sells to the retailer: listings, shelf space, promotion calendars and the funding that buys them. Shopper marketing sells to the person standing at that shelf or scrolling that retailer's app. Consumer brand marketing builds the reasons someone wants the product before they shop at all.

The three share money, and that's where plans go wrong. A temporary price cut is paid from trade funds, but its job is to change shopper behavior, so it should be judged with the same sales data as a display or a retail media campaign. When brand, sales and the retailer work from separate plans, each team counts the same sale as its own win. One calendar per retailer, with one sales goal, fixes most of that.

Step 1: Start from where your shopper actually buys

Before choosing tactics, map how your category's buyers split their trips between stores, retailer sites and marketplaces. FMI says in-store accounts for about 80% of grocery sales, and 54% of Americans always shop in store at their primary store. That split decides how much of the budget belongs at the physical shelf.

Then look at how many places they shop. FMI found Americans visit 5.4 separate grocery banners in a month. A brand sold in Kroger, Target and Walmart is competing for the same shopper three different ways, each with its own shelf, app and media network.

Pull your own sell-through by retailer and by channel before you plan a single display. The retailer where you're growing fastest online may not be the one where you sell the most units, and the plan should know the difference. Bigeye's food and beverage marketing strategy shows how the same split plays out for food and drink brands.

Step 2: Build one plan per retailer

Build one shopper plan for each priority retailer, agreed with that retailer's team, instead of one national plan pushed out to every account. Each retailer has its own shopper data, media network, display rules and calendar, and the programs that last are the ones that serve the brand's goals and the retailer's at once.

In practice that means a joint business plan per retailer: the events you'll support, the funding from trade and marketing budgets, the media you'll buy on the retailer's network, and the sales goal both sides sign. Put the retailer's category manager and media team in the same meeting, so the display and the media buy point at the same week.

Start with the two or three retailers that drive most of your volume. A brand that spreads shopper money across ten accounts usually ends up with ten small programs, and none of them is big enough to show a result in the retailer's data.

Step 3: Win the shelf and the pack first

Get the pack, the shelf placement and the display right before buying media to send people to them. Bigeye's Retail Disrupted study found 89% of shoppers say seeing, touching or trying a product adds value in store. In that moment the pack is doing the selling, and media can't fix a pack that doesn't read at a glance.

A shopper scanning a shelf gives each pack a few seconds. Test the front of pack for the three things a buyer checks: what it is, who it's for and why it's worth the price. The same Bigeye study found 89% say a product's visual appeal matters to which brand they choose, so design changes belong in the shopper budget as well as the brand budget.

Then check the shelf itself. Missing tags, out of stocks and wrong facings cost more sales than many media plans add. A store audit in a sample of your top doors is cheap, and it often finds the fastest win in the whole plan. Sampling earns its place here too, for new items a shopper has to taste or try before switching.

Step 4: Fund retail media against shopper goals

Buy retailer media with the same goals as the rest of the shopper plan: trial, repeat purchase or a bigger basket at that retailer. EMARKETER forecasts US retail media spend at $71.09 billion in 2026, and Walmart says Walmart Connect grew 43% in the US in its fiscal second quarter, excluding VIZIO.

That growth means every retailer will pitch its network hard during 2027 planning. Before you commit, ask each one three questions. What audience data will you get to plan with? What share of the buy will reach people who haven't bought the brand in the last year? And how, and how often, will sales be reported back?

Keep the retailer media budget tied to the joint business plan from Step 2, so the sponsored listings run in the same weeks as the display and the price event. Bigeye's guides to Walmart Connect and retail media strategy cover how to split a budget across networks.

Step 5: Treat the product page as the digital shelf

Give every retailer product page the same care as the physical pack: the title, images, ratings, content and availability. FMI found 77% of grocery shoppers use digital tools before shopping and 71% use them while shopping, so the page often makes the case before the shopper reaches the aisle, or while they stand in it.

Start with the retailers that sell the most of your product online. Check that the main image reads at thumbnail size, the title says what the product is and the size, and the reviews are recent. On Amazon, enhanced content carries much of this load; Bigeye's guide to Amazon A+ Content shows what the leaders in one category have in common.

Product data now matters for AI shopping assistants as well. On IN CLEAR FOCUS, retail analyst Miya Knights makes the point that when an algorithm builds the shortlist, the product data becomes the storefront. A page with thin attributes may never make the list.

Step 6: Add in-store media where it reaches real shoppers

Treat in-store screens and shelf media as a test for now, and buy it only where the retailer can show store traffic and sales reporting. EMARKETER puts in-store at just 0.8% of retail media spend this year, or $580 million, so it's small today, but networks such as Albertsons and CVS Health are adding screens.

Good places to test are the aisle where your category is shopped, the checkout for impulse items, and the pharmacy or beauty section for wellness brands. Match the creative to the shelf it sits beside. A screen that shows the same spot as the brand's TV ad wastes the one moment when the shopper can act.

Ask the retailer for a control group of matched stores without the screens, and read sales lift in your product. Screen impressions alone say nothing about sales. If a network can't offer that, keep the test small until it can.

Step 7: Measure sell-through with closed-loop data

Judge shopper programs on incremental sales at the retailer, measured with the retailer's own purchase data and a control group, rather than on displays placed or impressions served. Closed-loop reporting ties a media exposure to a later purchase by the same household, which is the measure that shows whether the program paid for itself.

"I think the more powerful thing that CPG brands should look for is closed-loop attribution."

Miya Knights, author of The Future of Shopping, on IN CLEAR FOCUS

Retailers are investing to make that possible. Kroger reported that Kroger Precision Marketing profit grew 24% in its second quarter of 2026, which shows how much of its business now rests on selling shopper data and media to brands.

Ask for the same three numbers from every program: new-to-brand buyers, repeat rate and sales lift against a holdout. Compare them across retailers on the same terms, and move next year's money to the programs that brought in buyers the brand didn't already have.

Shopper marketing levers at a glance

What it looks like in practice

Flex shows what shopper research does for a media plan. The brand has 130+ million units sold and products in 30,000+ retail stores. Bigeye developed nine micro-segments that turned a $3+ million media investment into precise campaigns, at an estimated $30 eCPM. The Flex case study has the detail.

Florida Crystals shows the retail side. Bigeye ran full-funnel media across social, digital and retail media networks, balancing awareness and conversion goals, and the Florida Crystals case study reports triple-digit growth as the brand moved from regional favorite to national contender.

Bigeye's read

Bigeye's view is that the price promotion is the most overused tool in shopper marketing, and most CPG brands should move part of that money into retailer media they can measure.

A temporary price cut is easy to approve. The retailer wants it, and the volume shows up that week. But much of that volume comes from loyal buyers stocking up early, people who would have bought at full price a week later. The promotion gets the credit, and the brand pays for sales it already had.

Retailer media with closed-loop reporting can show what a promotion rarely does: whether the buyer was new, and whether they came back. For 2027, Bigeye would hold back a share of promotion funds at one priority retailer, run it as targeted media to new and lapsed buyers, and compare incremental sales against the promotion it replaced.

How Bigeye helps

Bigeye plans shopper marketing for CPG brands retailer by retailer: shopper research, pack and display, product pages and retail media, all bought against the same sales goal. It's the core of Bigeye's CPG marketing work, with 50 plus retail media networks under management through its retail media team. Talk to Bigeye about your 2027 shopper marketing plan.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between shopper marketing and trade marketing?

Trade marketing is aimed at the retailer: listings, shelf space and promotion funding. Shopper marketing is aimed at the person shopping that retailer, through packs, displays, product pages and retail media. The two draw on the same budgets, so the strongest plans set one calendar and one sales goal for each retailer.

Is shopper marketing still mostly in store?

For most CPG categories, yes. FMI says in-store accounts for about 80% of grocery sales, and Bigeye's Retail Disrupted study found 44% of US shoppers prefer stores against 21% online. But FMI also found 71% of grocery shoppers use digital tools while they shop, so the plan needs both.

How does retail media fit into shopper marketing?

Retail media is the retailer's own ad network: sponsored listings, display on its site and app, offsite ads built on its shopper data, and in-store screens. It belongs in the shopper plan because it reaches buyers at that retailer and can report sales back. EMARKETER forecasts US retail media spend at $71.09 billion in 2026.

How do you measure shopper marketing?

Measure incremental sales at the retailer against a control group, using the retailer's purchase data wherever you can get it. Track new-to-brand buyers and repeat rate as well as units. Displays placed and impressions served show the program ran; they don't show whether it sold anything the brand wouldn't have sold anyway.

How should a CPG brand plan shopper marketing for 2027?

Start with the two or three retailers that drive most of your volume. Set a sales goal for each, then fund pack and shelf fixes, product pages and retailer media against it. For Flex, Bigeye built nine micro-segments from shopper research before a $3+ million media plan went live.

Plan your 2027 shopper program

Bigeye's CPG marketing team plans shopper marketing alongside retail media and brand work for consumer brands. If your 2027 retailer plans are taking shape, start the conversation.

Sources: Bigeye, Retail Disrupted (2021); FMI (Apr and May 2026); NIQ (Apr 2026); EMARKETER (Dec 2025 forecast; in-store retail media, 2026); Walmart (Aug 2026); Kroger (Sep 2026); Bigeye, IN CLEAR FOCUS podcast (Nov 2026).