Exclusive interview: IAB Europe’s push towards retail media standardisation

In recent years, digital retail media has been increasingly used by grocers to generate high-margin revenue. However, there are several common pain points hindering its growth.

For CPGs, these include things like reliable data and effective measurement capabilities. For retailers, there are collaboration challenges and a lack of understanding of how best to set up internal teams. Grocers are not retail media experts by nature, and retail media is inherently cross-functional, meaning no retailer has found the perfect formula.

Brands are crying out for standardisation, closed-loop measurement, relevant metrics, and timely post-campaign reports that are in usable formats.

IAB Europe is looking to find solutions to these challenges, and the business has developed Retail Media measurement standards for Europe, providing industry guidelines and measurement standards.

We spoke to Marie-Clare Puffett, Industry Development & Insights Director at IAB Europe, to better understand the work they have done and the issues still facing the sector.

Tell us a bit about the measurement standards you’ve developed for Europe. We understand these were created in partnership with major CPGs and retailers, including Albert Heijn. How did this work, and what benefits and challenges do you think each party brought to the process?

We developed Europe’s first Measurement Standards for on and off-site Retail Media through industry-wide collaboration. The process began with buy-side consultations to surface measurement challenges, then moved into a 1.5-day co-creation workshop with retailers and Retail Media Networks, and finished with a public consultation period. Retailers played a vital role, bringing deep insight into data availability, operational feasibility, and shopper behaviour, which ensured the standards are both ambitious and practical. The result is a transparent framework, with Version 2, covering Commerce Media and a clearer sales definition, set to be released in Q4 2025.

Which retailers and brands are leveraging the framework successfully?

In October 2024, we launched our Retail Media Certification Programme, an independent, third-party audited scheme that verifies a retailer or ad tech company’s compliance with our Retail Media Measurement Standards. It gives the market a clear signal of transparency, consistency, and trust in how performance is measured and reported. At this stage, two leading retailers, Nectar360 (Sainsbury’s Retail Media business) and Albert Heijn, are approaching completion of their certification audits. Their early participation reinforces the real-world viability of our standards. Meanwhile, ad tech companies are engaging in a newly launched beta phase to prepare for wider certification in 2026, helping ensure the ecosystem is unified, transparent, and ready for the future.

Considering how each market operates very differently, what challenges did you face in creating standardisation for Europe?

One of the biggest challenges was balancing the differing Retail Media maturity levels and operational realities across Europe. Some markets are highly advanced with sophisticated attribution models, while others are still in the early stages of measurement standardisation. Retailers also differ in data availability and preferred methodologies, which made it crucial to create definitions that were both consistent and flexible enough to apply locally. We addressed this by involving a wide range of stakeholders, including our network of National IABs and Federations, ensuring that the framework was ambitious but also practical to implement.

Brands are measuring success in many ways and using various techniques. How important is standardisation for brands to make their measurements comparable?

Standardisation is critical for brands. Right now, many brands face the challenge of comparing results across multiple retailers when each uses different definitions, methodologies, and attribution windows. Without a common language, it’s like comparing apples to oranges, and that makes it harder to optimise spend or prove ROI. By aligning on shared metrics and methodologies, brands can confidently compare performance, identify what’s really working, and make data-driven investment decisions.

With retailers, brands, and RM agencies all having different KPIs and internal processes, it still feels like there is a lot of room to grow in terms of collaboration and building cross-functional teams. How are you supporting this?

We developed our Retail & Commerce Media Committee to help foster cross-functional collaboration amongst key stakeholders. Through the Committee, we create shared standards, publish unified educational resources, deliver market intelligence reports, and host interactive forums. This ensures that although retailers, brands, and agencies may have different KPIs or processes, they now have a common framework and the opportunities to engage directly to build alignment.

How far away do you think we are from having uniform standardisation embedded within the industry?

We’ve made huge progress with the launch of our Retail Media Measurement Standards and the Certification Programme, but full, uniform standardisation across Europe will take time. The industry is diverse with different markets, maturity levels, and internal operating models, meaning adoption will be gradual. That’s why, alongside onboarding retailers, we’re focused on educating agencies and brands through our Committee’s work and resources. With leading retailers like Nectar360 and Albert Heijn nearing certification, and ad tech partners engaging in our beta phase, momentum is strong.

Some of the most advanced retail media players have started to add self-serve capabilities for brands to add and measure their campaigns on the retailers’ platform. Does this add a layer of complexity to the standardisation process?

If those self-serve capabilities align with industry standards, then it should not add any further complexity.  Retail media networks must ensure transparency in those self-service capabilities.

In the past, ROAS (return on advertising spend) has been the key measure of retail media success; however, this only tells part of the story. Are there ways to measure things like customer acquisition, brand/message recall, etc?

While ROAS has historically been the headline metric for Retail Media, it only scratches the surface. It doesn’t tell us why sales happened or whether the ad spend genuinely drove new value. That’s why we’re putting a strong focus on incrementality measurement.

Incrementality looks at what changed because of the campaign that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. By doing this, we can move beyond pure efficiency metrics and start answering much richer questions like customer acquisition, brand recall, and the incremental return on ad spend.

We’re currently working on bringing clarity and standardisation to this area, and are looking to release more information on this in the next month.

Brands want to work more closely with retailers’ retail media teams (for those that have these) and leverage their data. How important do you think it is for transparency here, and having open and honest conversations?

Transparency is essential if brands and retailers want to get the most value out of Retail Media partnerships. Retailers’ first-party data is one of their most powerful assets, but to use it effectively, brands need to understand exactly how it’s collected, measured, and attributed. That means having open, honest conversations about data quality, methodology, and what can (and can’t) be shared.

Our standards and certification programme are designed to facilitate that trust by creating a shared language for measurement and clear expectations around reporting.

As new RM touchpoints come to market (e.g. lockers, architecture, delivery vans), will IAB Europe add them to their set of measurements?

We consider retail media anything that uses retailer data in the planning, buying and optimisation of media, and the standards we have developed apply across that media.

Find out more about IAB Europe's definitions.

IAB Europe: leading by example

IAB Europe is making significant strides in helping businesses address inconsistencies in RM performance measurement. Our conversation emphasises the importance of standardisation for brands, the growing role of incrementality in measurement, and the need for transparency in data sharing. Retail media continues to evolve at a pace, and IAB Europe’s framework is designed to adapt to new touchpoints and technologies.

The work IAB Europe is doing supports our retail media trend prediction for 2025 (see below). For more on this, Retail Analysis subscribers can access our full report: Global online trends 2025.

Also, be sure to check out Retail media reaches a tipping point, which explores how both retailers and brands need to get real on the retail media revolution.