The IAB, in collaboration with IAB Europe and leading Retail Media Networks (RMNs), has published finalized definitions and standards to demonstrate the impact of RMN campaigns.
The standards were initially introduced and open for public comment in September at the IAB Connected Commerce Summit.
“These standards lay the foundation for transparency and consistency in in-store retail media by focusing on what matters: clear definitions and measurement methodologies,” said Jeffrey Bustos, vice president of the IAB, measure of addressability. in a blog post. “It’s about understanding the true impact of campaigns and driving better results for brands and retailers. »
In-store retail media. One of the most important clarifications concerns how the IAB defines in-store retail media. Here’s what it amounts to, according to the IAB: “advertising inventory that leverages retail data for planning, execution and measurement in a store’s physical environment.”
Retailer customer data is the key value for RMN advertisers. In many NMRs, brands can leverage this data, in a privacy-compliant manner, to serve ads to customers on retailer-owned digital properties (website or mobile app search), or through “off-site” channels that the retailer does not own, like CTV. A third option is in-store advertising, a form of advertising that has been around for decades. But now, with the evolution of NMR, retailers can power these in-store campaigns with customer data and use dynamic media like video screens and kiosks.
Why we care. Reaching customers in-store through RMN campaigns can give advertisers an advantage in influencing shoppers when they are about to purchase. But now more than ever, marketers need to prove that effectiveness. And one of the major challenges of measuring NMR is that every retailer is a walled garden, so standardization is essential. The advertising formats recognized by these IAB standards also take into account the evolution of shopping in a mixed or “phygital” world, where many customers shop in-store with their phone in hand.
Dig Deeper: Retail Media Networks: What You Need to Know
Shop areas. To measure the effectiveness of an in-store campaign, NMRs must first agree on what counts as in-store. The IAB standards divide store geography into five main regions or zones. These include:
Exterior entrance Checkout aisle Other.
Under these definitions, outdoor advertising placements in parking lots or at gas stations still count as in-store retail media. They reach customers present on site and likely to purchase. Advertisers can also combine outdoor ads with aisle or checkout ads to cover more of the in-store customer journey.
Ad formats. Another useful group of definitions concerns the types of advertisements that brands can serve to customers in-store. Here are the main categories included in the report (IAB plans to add more formats in future editions):
Digital Screens: Digital end caps and other displays throughout the store, including POS displays, hanging signs, interactive screens, kiosks, smart fridges and checkout screens. Audio: in-store radio and in-store announcements. Print/Static: Print advertisements that hang on signs, end caps, POS displays, banners, on shelves (“shelf slides”), floor graphics, or on featured shopping carts or tables. Connected shopping: manual scanners and app-assisted purchases. Experiential: in-store demonstrations, workshops, product tastings and events.
Metric. The new IAB standards include important definitions for advertising metrics such as loop duration, ad segments, ad units, and ad unit length. It also sets impression metrics to determine how many customers are likely to see each ad.
It is essential that the metrics for measuring sales are also defined. The IAB has issued recommendations regarding the timing at which sales and the success of advertising campaigns are reported. The IAB recommends three windows: 30 days of pre-exposure; duration of the campaign; 30 days after exposure. It also defines different approaches to measuring sales, such as sales lift and sales lift and brand lift.
New customers. The IAB standards also provide metrics to measure new customers’ interest in a brand based on their purchasing history.
IAB In-Store Retail Media: Definitions and Measurement Standards is located here.
