Buyers Face Retail Media Growing Pains as Sector Booms

The IAB is working on creating standards for digital retail media buying in 2023

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Elizabeth Marsten, group director of marketplace strategic services at agency Tinuiti, was evaluating a retail media buy when she noticed something seemed off.

For all the impressions the retailer reported, the ad should have generated way more clicks.

“[I asked the retailer] ‘Do you measure impressions with [trade body] Media Rating Council standards?’” Marsten said, only to be informed that the retailer did not. The initial conversation happened in late 2020—when the retail media industry was still in its early stages—but the retailer still wasn’t using MRC standards in 2022, she added.

“That tells you a maturity standpoint,” she said.

Marsten’s

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