Retail media has become one of the fastest-growing advertising segments in the digital economy. According to eMarketer's 2025 Retail Media Forecast, U.S. retail media ad spend is projected to exceed $60 billion by the end of 2026, with major networks operated by Walmart Connect, Target's Roundel, and Kroger Precision Marketing all expanding their advertiser rosters significantly. That growth brings a parallel operational challenge: managing the billing, onboarding, and campaign coordination demands of hundreds or thousands of brand advertisers requires infrastructure that many networks have been slow to build.
Virtual assistants are filling that infrastructure gap in 2026.
Advertiser Billing: The Revenue Backbone of Retail Media
Retail media networks operate on a media buying model where billing accuracy is critical to revenue integrity. Advertisers expect invoices that reconcile with campaign delivery reports, and discrepancies generate disputes that consume account management time and damage relationships. Virtual assistants trained in ad operations billing workflows can generate invoices from delivery data, cross-reference insertion orders, flag delivery shortfalls, and manage credit adjustments — creating a billing process that is both accurate and consistently executed.
A 2024 Boston Consulting Group study of media companies found that organizations with dedicated billing support roles resolved advertiser invoice disputes 35 percent faster than those routing billing through general account management staff. For retail media networks where advertiser relationships are built on transparency and performance accountability, fast dispute resolution is a retention asset.
Advertiser Onboarding Administration
Onboarding new brand advertisers onto a retail media network involves a significant volume of administrative steps: collecting creative assets, confirming targeting parameters, setting up measurement integrations, issuing access credentials, and coordinating kickoff timelines. Done well, it sets the tone for the advertiser relationship. Done poorly, it creates friction that erodes confidence before the first campaign even launches.
Virtual assistants can own the coordination layer of the onboarding process — sending intake forms, collecting required materials, confirming technical setup steps, scheduling kickoff calls, and maintaining onboarding status trackers. McKinsey's 2025 media operations research found that structured onboarding processes reduce time-to-first-campaign by an average of 18 days, directly accelerating revenue recognition for the network.
Campaign Delivery Coordination
After a campaign launches, ongoing delivery coordination ensures that pacing, targeting, and creative rotation are aligned with advertiser expectations. Virtual assistants can monitor delivery dashboards, flag underperforming line items, send mid-flight status updates to advertisers, and coordinate with ad operations teams on optimizations — maintaining the communication cadence that keeps advertisers informed without demanding constant attention from senior staff.
The National Retail Federation's 2025 retail media operations survey found that advertiser satisfaction scores were most strongly correlated with the frequency and quality of proactive communication during campaign flight, not just end-of-campaign results. Virtual assistants create the operational capacity for that communication to happen consistently, even as advertiser rosters scale.
Handling the Volume of a Growing Advertiser Base
Retail media networks often experience rapid advertiser growth that outpaces hiring cycles. A network that managed 200 brand advertisers in 2024 may be managing 500 or more in 2026, with each account generating billing, onboarding, and campaign coordination work. Scaling administrative capacity through full-time hires carries long lead times and fixed costs that are difficult to adjust as the advertiser mix changes.
Virtual assistants from providers like Stealth Agents offer a more elastic model — additional support can be onboarded quickly, and scope can be adjusted as campaign volume fluctuates across the year. This flexibility is particularly valuable for retail media networks that experience seasonal spikes in advertiser activity around major shopping events.
The Competitive Pressure to Operate More Efficiently
Deloitte's 2025 retail media industry outlook noted that mid-size networks face competitive pressure from larger players that have already invested in ad operations infrastructure. For networks that cannot match that infrastructure investment dollar-for-dollar, operational efficiency through VA support is a practical path to competitive parity.
The administrative work of running a retail media network — billing, onboarding, campaign coordination — is not optional. The question is whether it is handled by high-cost employees doing low-complexity tasks, or by virtual assistants purpose-built for that work.
Sources
- eMarketer, Retail Media Forecast, 2025
- Boston Consulting Group, Media Billing Operations Study, 2024
- National Retail Federation, Retail Media Operations Survey, 2025