The news: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Media Rating Council (MRC) proposed a series of guidelines to standardize retail media measurement—which, if enacted, would address a major pain point for both advertisers and retailers.

• The proposal includes guidelines for audience measurement, in-store advertising, ad delivery, incrementality, viewability, reporting, and transparency.

Why it matters: Marketers have long complained that the siloed nature of many retail media networks (RMNs), along with the lack of industrywide measurement standards, creates a significant barrier to growth.

• Over two-thirds (69%) of retail media buyers cited the complexity of the buying process—such as the need to repeat workflows for each of the RMNs they work with and the difficulties of cross-RMN performance analytics—as a top challenge in the retail media space, per the IAB’s Retail Media 2023 report.
• Sixty-two percent consider the lack of measurement standards to be a major obstacle to advertising on RMNs.
• And our recent CPG Retail Media Networks Benchmark found a significant opportunity gap between RMNs’ reporting abilities and buyers’ expectations.

The big takeaway: While advertisers haven’t been shy about pouring money into RMNs despite the industry’s growing pains, the adoption of industrywide standards could kick growth into an even higher gear once brands see a clear ROI.

• Omnichannel retail media ad spending is set to grow 19.7% this year to $45.38 billion, per our forecast.
• While the lion’s share of that money will go to Amazon (which declined to participate in the IAB’s Retail Media Measurement Working Group), the move toward industry standardization should give its competitors a healthy boost.

Go further: For more on retail media standardization, listen to the latest episode of our Reimagining Retail podcast. Or check out our full range of retail media coverage.