Retail media rates by UK region: London CPMs compared with the North East

What to take away

• Retail media rates UK regions vary widely: London on-site CPMs sit roughly two to three times North East levels on comparable formats.
• The gap tracks audience value, not just audience size, so a cheap North East impression can still be the better buy.
• ONS regional accounts and output data explain part of the difference in advertiser demand.
• Fee structures, including tech fees and data fees, often add 15 to 30 per cent on top of the media CPM.
• Rate cards are ceilings or floors, not prices: negotiated rates move with volume, season and category.
• Any regional benchmark should be dated, because rate cards change with inflation and platform policy.

Why retail media CPMs differ between London and the North East

Retail media pricing follows retail sales density. Where shoppers spend more per basket and per square foot, retailers can charge more for the attention they sell. London has the deepest concentration of high-spend shoppers in the UK. North East England has fewer, and lower average baskets.

Advertiser demand compounds this. Most UK brand budgets are set nationally but weighted to London, because that is where agency teams, flagship stores and press coverage sit. More bidders on the same inventory pushes the clearing price up.

Retailer supply matters too. London is served by a long list of grocery, pharmacy, fashion and delivery apps with mature ad platforms. The North East has fewer retail media owners, so supply is thinner but demand is also thinner. The net effect is lower CPMs, not scarcity pricing.

Category mix explains the rest. Finance, beauty and premium grocery advertisers pay London premiums because their target shoppers cluster there. Value grocery, home and family categories travel better nationally, which flattens regional differences for those advertisers.

One practical point: regional CPMs are usually quoted on where the shopper is, not where the advertiser is. A London agency buying a Newcastle audience pays North East rates.

ONS regional accounts and output data behind the comparison

There is no official CPM index. The closest thing to a public benchmark is economic output by region. The ONS regional accounts break down gross value added by UK region, which is the standard proxy for the spending power behind an audience.

Gross value added per head in London is well above the UK average, while the North East sits below it. That gap does not translate one to one into CPMs, but it explains why advertisers accept a London premium at all. A region with more disposable income supports higher prices for the same impression.

Output data adds the demand side. The ONS output figures show how production and services activity is distributed, which tends to track where brand and retail businesses concentrate their marketing spend.

Market sizing needs a retail lens as well. The ONS retail industry data covers retail sales volumes and values, which is the base layer under any retail media forecast. If retail sales fall in a region, retail media budgets usually follow with a lag.

Use these datasets for direction, not for price setting. They tell you which regions can sustain a premium. They do not tell you what a specific retailer will charge next quarter.

London CPM ranges for on-site and off-site retail media

The ranges below are working benchmarks for planning, drawn from published rate cards and agency trading experience. Treat them as starting points for negotiation, not quotes.

Inventory type	London CPM range	Typical minimum spend
On-site sponsored product	£8 to £18	£2,000 per campaign
On-site display and banners	£12 to £25	£3,000 per campaign
On-site homepage takeover	£30 to £60	£10,000 per day
Off-site programmatic display	£5 to £12	£1,500 per campaign
Off-site video	£14 to £30	£5,000 per campaign
Retailer CRM and email	£25 to £50	£2,500 per send
In-store screens and radio	£10 to £22	£4,000 per month

On-site sponsored product is the workhorse format and the most competitive. London rates for it have firmed as more brands moved budget from search into retail media. Expect the top of the range in grocery and beauty, the bottom in general merchandise.

Off-site programmatic is priced closer to open web display, because the retailer is selling an audience rather than a shelf. The London premium is smaller here, often 20 to 40 per cent over national averages rather than double.

Homepage and takeover formats are priced by day, not by impression, so the CPM depends entirely on traffic. A London grocery takeover on a high-traffic day can look expensive per thousand but cheap per incremental shopper reached.

CRM and email carry the highest CPMs because the audience is first-party and consented. That premium is defensible under UK GDPR, provided the retailer has the right permissions. Ask for the consent basis before you buy.

North East CPM ranges on the same inventory types

North East England covers Tyne and Wear, County Durham, Northumberland and the Tees Valley. Retail media supply is concentrated around grocery, convenience and a small number of regional retail apps.

Inventory type	North East CPM range	Typical minimum spend
On-site sponsored product	£4 to £9	£750 per campaign
On-site display and banners	£6 to £13	£1,000 per campaign
On-site homepage takeover	£14 to £28	£3,500 per day
Off-site programmatic display	£3 to £7	£500 per campaign
Off-site video	£8 to £16	£2,000 per campaign
Retailer CRM and email	£14 to £28	£1,000 per send
In-store screens and radio	£5 to £12	£1,500 per month

On-site sponsored product in the North East typically clears at around half the London rate. The absolute gap is small in cash terms, which is why many brands test here first.

Minimum spends are the bigger difference. A North East test can often be run for a fraction of the London entry price, which makes the region useful for creative and keyword testing before a national rollout.

Off-site display in the North East is cheap enough that frequency becomes the main lever. Buying three or four times the impressions for the same budget can beat a single London burst, depending on the objective.

Be careful with thin inventory. Some North East formats sell out during peak trading, and the effective CPM then rises above the rate card. Book early for Christmas and back to school.

Fee structures that sit on top of the CPM

Media cost is rarely the whole invoice. Several named fee structures sit on top, and they differ by retailer and by contract size.

1. Tech or platform fee. A percentage of media spend, commonly 10 to 20 per cent, charged for use of the retailer's ad platform or a demand-side platform.
2. Management fee. An agency or trading desk charge, usually 10 to 15 per cent of media, sometimes a flat retainer instead.
3. Data or audience fee. A charge for first-party audience segments or measurement, often a fixed monthly amount or a CPM uplift.
4. Creative and production fee. Asset adaptation, usually priced per format or per market.
5. Minimum commitment. An annual or quarterly spend floor that unlocks better rates and sometimes removes the tech fee.

These stack. A London campaign with a 15 per cent tech fee, a 12 per cent management fee and a data uplift can see total cost per thousand impressions rise by roughly a third above the headline CPM. Budget for that from the start.

Fee structures also vary by region in practice, because smaller regional campaigns often fall below the threshold for volume discounts. A North East buy can therefore carry a higher percentage fee even though the media CPM is lower. Compare total cost, not headline rates.

Our guide to retail media costs and pricing sets out how to build that comparison line by line.

Inflation and price indices applied to rate card changes

Retail media rate cards move with the wider price level. The ONS inflation and price indices are the reference point retailers and agencies use when they reset rates at the start of a financial year.

In practice, most platforms apply an annual uplift rather than repricing continuously. The uplift is often described as covering cost inflation, and it is applied to the rate card before any negotiation begins.

This matters for regional comparison. If London rates rise faster than North East rates, the gap widens without any change in audience quality. If the reverse happens, the gap narrows. Neither movement tells you which region performs better.

Ask two questions when a rate card changes. First, what index was used and over what period. Second, whether the uplift applies to all formats or only some. A blanket uplift on a format you do not buy is irrelevant to your plan.

For multi-year planning, index your assumptions rather than fixing them. A three-year retail media plan built on today's CPMs will be wrong by year three unless you apply an explicit uplift assumption and revisit it.

Our comparison of retail media pricing explains how to keep those assumptions traceable to a source rather than a guess.

What a regional rate card can and cannot prove

A rate card proves what a retailer is willing to quote. It does not prove what you will pay, what you will get, or whether the region was the reason for the result.

Here is a worked example. A homeware brand has £30,000 for a four-week campaign. It splits the budget evenly between London and the North East on the same on-site display format.

• London: £15,000 at a £20 CPM buys 750,000 impressions.
• North East: £15,000 at a £9 CPM buys about 1,667,000 impressions.
• Add a 15 per cent tech fee to both, and the effective CPMs become roughly £23 and £10.35.
• If the London audience converts at twice the North East rate, London wins on cost per sale.
• If it converts at 1.3 times, the North East wins despite the lower basket value.
• The rate card predicted none of this. The conversion data did.

That is the limit of regional pricing. It tells you the entry cost of attention. It does not tell you the value of that attention to your brand.

Three further caveats. Published rate cards are often indicative and exclude fees. Regional CPMs are usually quoted on shopper location, which is not the same as delivery location. And retail media measurement standards set by IAB UK mean results should be reported on defined, comparable events, so insist on that before comparing regions.

If you use an agency, check how regional buying is charged. Our breakdown of regional rates covers the fee models UK agencies apply and where regional buying changes the maths.

Finally, remember that a regional CPM is a snapshot. Retail media inventory, competition and measurement all shift within a year. Rebuild the benchmark each planning cycle rather than carrying last year's numbers forward.

Common questions

Are London retail media CPMs always higher than North East CPMs? Yes on comparable formats and retailers, typically by 80 to 120 per cent for on-site inventory. The gap narrows for off-site programmatic, where the retailer is selling an audience rather than a shelf position.

Can I buy London audiences at North East rates? Rarely. Rates are usually set on shopper location, so targeting a London postcode triggers London pricing. Some retailers price nationally and let targeting decide delivery, which is worth asking about.

What is the minimum spend for a North East retail media test? Several formats start at £500 to £1,000 per campaign, which makes the region practical for testing creative and keywords before a national buy.

Do fee structures differ by region? The percentage fees are usually national, but smaller regional campaigns often miss volume thresholds, so the effective percentage can be higher in the North East than in London.

How often do retail media rate cards change? Most platforms reset annually, often with an inflation-linked uplift, and adjust mid-year for peak trading periods. Always ask for the current card in writing.

Which ONS data is most useful for regional planning? Regional accounts for spending power, output data for demand context, retail industry data for market size, and inflation indices for rate card uplifts.