Observed Signal · Oct 9, 2025 · Industry Panel / Summit · Source: https://www.iab.com/blog/feed/ · Impact: 3/5 · Sentiment: Negative
Commerce Media: Hype Fades, Brands Seek Maturity
An IAB blog summarizes a panel at the IAB 2025 Connected Commerce Summit where brand leaders from Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Boiron and Once Upon a Farm discussed the current state of commerce media. While IAB’s 2025 Outlook projected commerce media ad spend to grow 25.1% in 2024 (down 10 percentage points vs. prior year), the industry is moving from hype to maturity with uneven progress across companies. A live poll of 500 media professionals showed only 17% consider themselves "Advanced" while 83% are still developing capabilities. Panelists highlighted internal organizational barriers and a persistent lack of measurement standardization across retail media networks. Proposed responses included blended scorecards that combine short-term retail metrics with long-term brand signals and triangulation models linking campaign, category, and loyalty data.
The piece reports industry-wide survey data and practitioner perspectives showing that commerce media growth is slowing and that measurement fragmentation and internal organizational barriers are major obstacles to scaling — issues that materially affect how brands invest in and operationalize retail/commerce media.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- IAB’s 2025 Outlook Report projected a 25.1% increase in commerce media ad spend in 2024, down 10 percentage points from the previous year.
- At the IAB 2025 Connected Commerce Summit, a poll of ~500 media professionals found 26% "Scaling Up", 23% "Gaining Traction", 22% operationalizing processes, 17% "Advanced", and 17% just getting started (83% not yet advanced).
- Panelists from Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Boiron and Once Upon a Farm reported that measurement and standardization across retail/commerce media networks remain fragmented and a major pain point.
- Nestlé’s Gabi Viljoen proposed a "blended scorecard" that combines retail metrics with brand equity signals; Once Upon a Farm’s Jennifer Leen Berglund described a triangulation model connecting campaign-level data with category growth and loyalty metrics.
Connected Companies & Entities
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Retail Media Enters Maturity as Easy Growth Fades
After five years of rapid expansion, retail media is shifting from early-stage growth to maturity. IAB forecasts 12.1% growth in 2026 while Forrester projects global retail media investment could surpass $300 billion by the end of the decade. Growth to date has been concentrated among a few scaled players and fueled largely by trade and shopper funds (estimated 30–60% of spend), which are now diminishing. The next phase requires attracting incremental media budgets, improving measurement and accountability (particularly incrementality and in-store attribution), and integrating retail media into broader business functions — merchandising, loyalty, ecommerce and operations. The industry faces operational and measurement challenges and will discuss these topics at the IAB Connected Commerce Summit on April 14 in New York City.
Commerce Media Hits 'Day Two': What's Next?
At the 2026 IAB Connected Commerce Summit (Apr 23, 2026), IAB argued that commerce media has moved beyond rapid expansion and must now prove its value. Growth is slowing, budgets face greater scrutiny, and many commerce media networks (CMNs) are undifferentiated. IAB published a work product, "Building A More Competitive Commerce Media Ecosystem," offering strategic paths for CMNs. The article identifies four 2026 imperatives: strengthen retail fundamentals before AI, scale in‑store media with reliable measurement, integrate retail media into core business functions, and provide transparent, validated measurement (including incrementality). IAB said it will publish an AI‑attribution playbook later in the year and formed a task force to standardize data inputs and reporting templates for data clean rooms to improve interoperability and budget allocation.
From Hype to Maturity: Retail Media Needs Standards
The article argues Retail Media must move from a tactical, hype-driven phase to a mature, integrated discipline. Citing a WARC report that global Retail Media spend reached $154.8 billion in 2024—surpassing traditional TV—the author says full value requires combining onsite, offsite and instore touchpoints with data activation, closed-loop measurement and consistent KPIs. Europe should pursue its own, data-sovereign solutions rather than copying U.S. platform models. Industry-wide standards, common measurement frameworks (BVDW Retail Media Guide, IAB guidelines) and stronger integration with brand planning and media strategy are presented as necessary steps to scale Retail Media, build advertiser trust, and enable transparent investment decisions.
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