We are happy to share the exciting news that Kevel has been recognized as the winner of the Retail Media Infrastructure/Platform of the Year award at The Drum Awards for Commerce Media 2026. This recognition celebrates the impact our Retail Media Cloud® has had in helping retailers, marketplaces, and commerce media leaders build high-performing retail media networks on their own terms.
And while we are celebrating, we also want to shine a spotlight on one of our incredible customers. Chewy Ads took home the award for Sales Team of the Year (Network/Media Owner), a well-deserved recognition for a team that has built one of the most impressive commerce media operations in the industry. More on that shortly.
What the Award Means
The Drum Commerce Media Awards recognize excellence across the commerce media ecosystem, from technology and infrastructure to creative execution and team performance. Winning Retail Media Infrastructure/Platform of the Year is a meaningful validation of what we have been building at Kevel and, more importantly, what our customers have been able to accomplish with it.
Our entry, titled Retail Media Without Compromise: Kevel's Retail Media Cloud Delivers Real-Time Activation and Real Results, made the case that the future of retail media belongs to retailers and marketplaces that control their own infrastructure, data, and monetization strategy. The results our customers have achieved prove that point better than anything else.
The Problem We Set Out to Solve
Retail media has quickly become one of the most powerful growth engines in digital commerce. For a long time, many retailers faced a difficult tradeoff when it comes to their retail media networks: they could either join an existing ad platform and scale quickly while giving up control of their data and audience logic, or they could try to build something in-house and spend years doing it.
Kevel was built to offer a third path. Our Retail Media Cloud® is the industry's first API-native retail media infrastructure platform, giving retailers the building blocks to launch and scale their own media networks without handing over control to a black box.
That means retailers can customize ad formats, decisioning logic, and campaign workflows across on-site, in-app, and off-site environments. They can activate their own first-party data. And they can evolve their retail media strategy as the market evolves, without being locked into a rigid platform.
As Carlos Paulo, Head of ENDLESS, Retail Media Solutions at MC Sonae, put it: "Being an API-based solution gave us the ability to evolve over time because retail media is in a very fluid context right now. We would not be stuck with a solution that gives us little room for adaptation."
Real Results Across Real Businesses
The proof of any platform is in the outcomes it delivers. Here is a look at what Kevel-powered retail media networks have achieved.
iFood turned retail media into a core revenue driver by activating first-party data and deploying API-driven sponsored formats across one of the world's largest food delivery marketplaces. As Lucas Sampaio, Senior Business Intelligence Analyst at iFood, shared: "Kevel has enabled us to rapidly scale, growing monthly iFood Delivery ad revenue by 20x in a single year, and empowering this product to become one of the main EBITDA levers for the company."
Edmunds used the Retail Media Cloud® to launch a sponsored listings solution powered by first-party intent signals, generating a 1,900% increase in retail media revenue and rapidly positioning the automotive marketplace ahead of competitors still relying on third-party ad platforms.
Across Kevel-powered networks, advertisers have also seen:
- Up to +478% improvements in ROAS driven by more precise audience targeting
- Up to 3x increases in conversion rates enabled by real-time decisioning and predictive optimization
- Faster campaign activation and reduced operational overhead through self-service tooling and API automation
What's New in 2026: Real-Time Adobe Integration
One of the most exciting developments we launched this year is a real-time integration with Adobe Experience Platform (AEP). This new streaming destination allows retailers to activate Adobe audiences directly into Kevel's ad decisioning platform, eliminating batch delays and ensuring that targeting reflects live shopper behavior at the exact moment an ad is served.
This matters because intent changes fast. A shopper browsing one category in the morning may be ready to purchase in a completely different category that same afternoon. By streaming audiences built in Adobe Experience Platform directly into Kevel's ad server, retailers ensure their ads are always informed by what shoppers are doing right now. The integration also supports multiple identity types, including ECID, GAID, IDFA, and custom IDs, enabling accurate recognition across devices and environments.
Spotlight: Congratulations to Chewy Ads on Sales Team of the Year
We could not let this moment pass without celebrating one of our amazing customers. At the same Drum Commerce Media Awards ceremony, Chewy Ads won the award for Sales Team of the Year (Network/Media Owner), with their entry titled Scaling at Dog Year Speed: How the Chewy Ads Sales Team Built a Commerce Media Powerhouse.
That title says it all. Chewy has built a retail media operation that reflects the same values we believe in at Kevel: speed, precision, and a relentless focus on advertiser results. The Chewy Ads team has scaled their commerce media business at a remarkable pace, delivering genuine value for the pet brands and advertisers that want to reach Chewy's highly engaged, loyal customer base.
Chewy's retail media network is powered by Kevel's infrastructure, and seeing them recognized for Sales Team of the Year is a huge source of pride for our entire team. It is a reminder of why we do what we do. When we build great infrastructure, our customers can do extraordinary things with it.
Congratulations to every member of the Chewy Ads sales team. You absolutely earned this.
Looking Ahead
Today, Kevel powers retail media networks for global leaders including The Home Depot, Edmunds, MC Sonae, iFood, and Chewy. Across sectors and geographies, the results are consistent: stronger advertiser performance, faster time-to-market, and sustainable media revenue built on retailer-owned infrastructure.
Winning at The Drum Commerce Media Awards is a fantastic milestone, but it is also a motivator. The retail media landscape continues to evolve rapidly, and our job is to make sure our customers are always ahead of it.
If you are ready to build a retail media network that is truly your own, we would love to talk. Reach out to our team and let's explore what's possible.
