Target’s retail media network, Roundel, is one to watch in 2025. Why? Target has created an exciting value proposition for brands wanting a little more bang for their buck. As competition continues to rise, Target’s Roundel is offering an appealing combination of easy-to-use tools, value-for-money advertising options, and one of the largest first-party data sets from which marketers can reach new audiences, ready to discover their brand. As of March 2025, using Target’s Roundel advertising tools just got more powerful with the launch of Pacvue Commerce for Target – the only fully integrated omnichannel solution developed to connect store operations, inventory management, digital shelf, promotional activities, search and retail media and competitive intelligence on a single platform.
In this guide for eCommerce, sales, and marketing teams, we will uncover:
- Why you should be advertising on Target in 2025.
- How to get started using Roundel, the easy way.
- The competitive advantage you’ll gain from leveraging Pacvue’s Commerce for Target solution.
Why brands should engage with Target: the business case you can’t ignore
Target Roundel by the numbers
Target continues to prove its value to North America’s leading brands. A survey conducted by Statista between November 2023 and January 2024 revealed 51% of marketers engaged with Target’s Roundel retail media. By the end of 2024, Target’s Roundel saw 35% growth YoY as advertisers began to invest more on the retailer’s site and app. Pacvue’s own Quarterly CPC Benchmark Reports demonstrates the increased advertising and competition, and diversification of retail strategies becomes more and more important.
Indicators that Target retail media studio will continue to gain share
- Target plans to double its value for advertisers to $4 billion in the next five years, up from the impressive $2 billion today.
- The retailing giant boasts a huge network of just under 2,000 physical stores and a growing ecommerce business.
- Target boasts robust, first-party audience data of 165 million shoppers, who tend to be more affluent, high-intent and loyal.
Pair these facts with Target’s strategies to make it easy to onboard advertisers and build loyalty among its shopper base and you have a compelling reason to consider a larger advertising investment on Target.
Why Target’s Roundel media studio should be part of your marketing strategy in 2025
Attractive pricing for advertisers adds to Roundel’s appeal
There is no access fee for Roundel advertising and advertisers benefit from its self-service tool. Following Walmart’s lead, Target has also adopted the second-price auction strategy for Target Product Ads (TPAs). This means the second highest bidder determines the final sale price per impression, helping to level up the playing field for smaller budget holders.
Target Circle Days
Target’s own tentpole events are increasingly going head-to-head with Amazon’s Prime Day events. In 2024, Target Circle Week’s promotions led to the highest digital traffic of the year. Target leverages the overall increase in online shopping during Amazon’s popular sales events while offering advertisers a better deal.
Target’s omnichannel reach
Target offers a truly integrated shopping experience across physical stores, its website and app. Services like Same-Day Delivery (Shipt), Drive-Up, Pick-Up, and Target Plus marketplace all add to the convenience of shopping with Target. Target can offer your products visibility and availability wherever and whenever your customers choose to shop.
Omnichannel campaigns using Target media studio
Roundel advertising reaches across both physical stores and digital assets, including the website and the app. You can also use Target’s first-party data to target audiences on social media and on CTV streaming channels like FireTV. You can find the full guide to Roundel retail media assets here including social, influencers, programmatic, search, and display.
Roundel Media Studio
Target’s self-service platform makes it easier for brands to access Target’s audiences as well as buy retail media in the popular form of Product Ads. Target Product Ads (TPAs) are the most popular of Target’s ad assets and Roundel Media Studio makes them accessible to brands of all sizes, including smaller brands and Target Plus sellers.
Target Plus is a selective marketplace
Target’s equivalent to Amazon and Walmart’s marketplaces, known as Target Plus, sets itself apart due to its selectivity; brands have to be invited to join this expanding network of 3P sellers and smaller brands. While you’ve still got to fight for the Buy Box, manufacturers can take comfort in the reduced risk of losing sales to counterfeit products and rogue sellers.
Target supports innovation
Target continues to collaborate with leading marketing and eCommerce technology platforms to make sure that launching campaigns, launching new products, and scaling Roundel advertising campaigns is easy. Pacvue’s own advertising and commerce platform is available and fully integrated with Target’s tools via our API. Launched in March 2025, Pacvue Commerce for Target is the only omnichannel solution to connect:
- Store operations
- Inventory management
- Digital shelf analysis
- Promotions
- Search and retail media, and
- Competitive intelligence— all in one platform.
The benefit? Unifying in-store and digital retail operations data helps brands drive operational efficiencies, while media and commerce integration enables brands and agencies to adjust ad strategies in real time and measure incrementality to drive long-term profitable growth while maximizing market share.
How does Pacvue Commerce for Target give you a competitive advantage?
Solve the problem of disconnected data that is problematic for ecommerce operations and marketing teams
When finance, supply chain, eCommerce and marketing teams work in data silos and with disconnected systems, it leads to confusion, overlapping work, and dwindling margins. Integrating commerce operations and advertising within Pacvue’s platforms give each of those teams the information they need in one place to work together, faster. For example;
How Pacvue helps eCommerce teams
- Without integration, ecommerce teams manually pull product performance reports from different sources, leading to errors and delays in decision-making.
- With integration, they get centralized analytics showing which products need price adjustments or ad support. They can also see which product detail pages (PDPs) could be optimized in order to improve search or conversion rates as well as keeping an eye on which products are winning or losing the Buy Box, and to whom.
How Pacvue helps Marketing teams
- Without integration, marketing teams lack visibility into stock levels on Target, sometimes promoting out-of-stock products through their Roundel advertising campaign.
- With integration, they see real-time inventory alongside ad performance, so they can shift budgets to in-stock products.
How Pacvue helps Finance teams
- Without integration, the finance team struggles to track real-time ad spend vs. revenue on Target, leading to inaccurate budget forecasting.
- With integration, Pacvue helps to automate financial reporting, linking ad spend, sales performance, and profitability in one place.
How Pacvue helps Supply Chain teams
- Without integration, the supply chain team doesn’t know when marketing runs a big promotion, leading to out-of-stock issues and lost sales.
- With integration, they get real-time inventory and demand forecasting, allowing them to adjust stock levels proactively.
Get started with Target retail media and Pacvue Commerce for Target in five simple steps
- Onboarding and integration
- Pacvue connects directly with Roundel’s retail media platform, so you can manage your campaigns from one interface.
- Campaign automation
- Smart automation tools in Pacvue handle bidding, budgeting, and keyword targeting, making it easy for advertisers working with Roundel retail media for the first time.
- You can set rules-based optimizations to scale Roundel advertising campaigns without having to make constant manual adjustments.
- Keyword and audience targeting recommendations
- Pacvue suggests which keywords would be worth targeting for maximum return.
- You can refine your targeting strategies further based on competitor activity and historical performance.
- Budget and bidding management
- Pacvue’s automated bid strategies adjust spend based on ROAS, sales trends, and market demand.
- It also prevents overspending on low-performing ads and shows ways to maximize investment by focusing on high-converting ones.
- Expert support and strategic guidance
- Pacvue offers dedicated support and best-practice recommendations for brands new to Target retail media.
- Pre-built templates and campaign structures will help you launch quickly without having to learn the platform from scratch.
Expand your commerce operations and retail media strategy with Target
Target’s retail media network, Roundel, is rapidly evolving, offering you a powerful way to connect with high-intent shoppers at an attractive price point. As competition and costs rise on Amazon and Walmart, Target presents a valuable opportunity for brands looking to diversify their retail media mix while benefiting from one of the most sophisticated first-party data sets in retail media.
With the launch of Pacvue Commerce for Target, managing your advertising, ecommerce, and supply chain data in one place has never been easier. By breaking down silos between teams, automating campaign optimizations, and providing real-time performance insights, Pacvue helps brands maximise ROAS, improve operational efficiency, and drive real growth on Target retail media.
If you’re ready to unlock the full potential of Target, speak to one of our advisors about working with Target.
