The recommendation to rely more on independent third parties comes as concerns around the disappearance of truly neutral vendors is heightened.
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Dive Brief:
- The Association of National Advertisers for the first time is putting out the call to establish a shared industry framework for retail media measurement, according to an announcement from the trade body.
- Retail media is a channel heavily reliant on first-party data, but fails to offer satisfactory comparisons between different networks despite that wealth of insight. More independent third-party measurement and accreditation are needed to improve reliability, among other conclusions outlined in the full report.
- Other trade groups, including the Interactive Advertising Bureau, have previously tried to standardize retail media, which has risen to become one of the fastest-growing areas of digital advertising. A renewed push for common ground comes as the field of neutral ad-tech measurement vendors is perceived to be shrinking due to M&A.
Dive Insight:
The ANA’s call for unified industry measurement echoes an initiative undertaken by the IAB in partnership with the Media Rating Council three years ago. The IAB and MRC guidelines center on standardizing audience measurement, ad delivery, incrementality and campaign reporting. Marketers should adopt the baseline retail media standards set by the MRC for impressions, viewability, clicks and invalid traffic, the ANA said.
The ANA will update its guidance over time and is initially focused on inconsistent metrics, measurement methodologies and vocabulary when it comes to gauging retail media performance. Long-term, it hopes to tackle outcomes and incrementality measurement, data sharing, integrations and on-platform experimentation. The report emphasizes that the industry needs more third-party accreditation from organizations like the MRC and to employ more robust, independent measurement that is separate from what networks choose to disclose.
“Marketers should lean more heavily on independent third parties for both validation and consistency,” the report reads. “This is especially important when comparing performance across networks, where self-reported results may reflect methodological differences rather than true differences in performance.”
The ANA report follows a recent run of ad-tech M&A that has stoked concern around the potential loss of neutral third parties. Publicis, the agency network, acquired the data-collaboration platform LiveRamp in May while ratings giant Nielsen announced a take-private deal for ad-verification firm DoubleVerify earlier in August.
“In certain cases, such as DoubleVerify, the acquiring party is themselves an independent third-party measurement company (i.e., Nielsen),” Jackson Bazley, executive vice president of measurement for marketers at the ANA, said in emailed comments. “In situations where that is not the case, marketers will continue to seek independent measurement systems, and they will rigorously evaluate the true objectivity and neutrality of the tools available to them.”
In terms of negotiating with media networks, marketers require a better window into sales volume, category movement, inventory status, pricing and basket composition, the ANA posits — details retailers may be hesitant to share, as their understanding of first-party data is key to their competitive advantage. Marketers should also push networks to “disclose the logic behind what is being reported” and not trust cross-network return on investment claims at face value, the ANA said.
In addition, they should advocate for common reporting practices, such as 14-day attribution lookback windows. Network operators for their part have sowed confusion by not having consistent or clear definitions around product categories, audiences, and purchase types. Without more alignment, accurately understanding ROI and growth will remain a challenge in the view of the ANA.
The fragmented, opaque aspects of retail media have not put a meaningful dent in its momentum, as U.S. ad spending on the channel is forecast by Emarketer to rise 19% to $72 billion this year. The ANA represents brand marketers, a cohort that has long expressed frustration that retail media lacks transparency and can feel like a tax imposed as part of larger trade agreements. Retailers not only have a window into purchase-level data that many marketers lack, but also control of valuable shelf space, giving them additional leverage.
The ANA’s framework was developed with a working group made up of major CPG companies, including PepsiCo, Hershey’s, Clorox, Kimberly-Clark and Mondelez, as well as retail media networks like Instacart, Walmart Connect and CVS Media Exchange.
Filed Under:Data/Analytics,Ad Tech
