Wayne Tassie, Group Integrated Solutions Director, EMEA at DoubleVerify was elected as the Chair of IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee on the 13th of December at the last monthly meeting of 2022. Replacing Nick Welch, Head of Programmatic, EMEA at Integral Ad Science (IAS) who stepped down after a successful two year tenor, Wayne was elected to lead the committee’s work, to help increase understanding of programmatic and the impact it is having on digital advertising and influence industry initiatives to improve the ecosystem.
Commenting on his newly appointed role and vision for the committee, Wayne said “"It is an honour and a privilege to have been elected as the Chair of IAB Europe's Programmatic Trading Committee, and I wish to express my gratitude to Nick Welch, for his hard work during his tenure.
Over the course of my two-year term, my focus will revolve around driving responsible programmatic media investment. I am committed to supporting quality journalism, and promoting open communication across the programmatic supply chain. My vision is to create an ecosystem where publishers, agencies, advertisers and consumers all thrive equally, strengthened by earned trust, increased investments and mutual commercial success.
Understanding the profound impact of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) and recognising the potential implications if overlooked, I want to ensure our committee represents and upholds the fundamental principles of DE&I. Those who know me, will understand that this resonates with me on a personal level, and I am fully committed to embedding it seamlessly across our thought-leadership and event activations in a manner that is both balanced and inclusive.
I am extremely excited to be working with Helen Mussard and the team at IAB Europe, additionally working closely with the committee's Vice Chair, Jörg Vogelsang."
Wayne is an active member of the Programmatic Trading Committee and now, as Chair, will follow on the great work of former chairs.
Wayne Tassie’s Bio: Wayne tried his hand at a lot of different careers before discovering his love for the Media industry and digital marketing. In his time, he has been a chef, a photographer on a cruise ship, a publican, and cabin crew for Virgin Atlantic, where he picked up many customer service skills, which underpin his work ethic to this day.
His bachelor’s degree is in Editorial Photography and having discovered Media, he retrained with The IDM, completing his Professional and Post-Grad Diplomas in Digital Marketing through evening classes. Years later he would teach the IDM's one-day Programmatic Essentials course and lecture Digital Transformation on their Post-Grad Diploma, for almost 4 years.
Today he is a sales leader, mentor, lecturer, moderator, and panelist with over 15 years of digital experience, centered around business development in roles specific to programmatic, content verification, audience targeting, global audience platforms, and networks.
He has worked at DoubleVerify for over 5 years and is responsible for DV’s programmatic solutions and sales across EMEA. He has recently been elected to Chair of the IAB Europe Programmatic Trading Committee and is looking forward to commencing his two-year tenure and creating positive change across our industry.
Wayne is a proud Essex boy and lives with his partner Jason and their two French Bulldogs, Reggie and Gracie.
What will 2024 have in store for the programmatic industry? What buzzwords will pop up at every conference and industry event? We’ve asked the people in the know.. Members of IAB Europe’s Programmatic Trading Committee! They predicted AI, sustainability and many more last year, so it’s a safe bet they will get it right for 2024. Take a look below and see their predictions!
Luca Masiello, Senior Manager, Advertiser Partnerships, Microsoft
Three things: sustainability, supply chain transparency and AI. 2023 was the first year the word ‘sustainability’ really entered our programmatic lexicon. I believe we will see huge advancements in this space in 2024, specifically around measurement and (much-needed) legislation. I expect to see the formation of numerous new partnerships between technology companies and sustainable-tech vendors to surface even more effective ‘green’ buying solutions.
The focus on supply chain transparency and more efficient buying in programmatic continues to be front a centre for media buyers, especially given the global macroeconomic environment and increased pressure on advertiser P&Ls. Buyers are continuing to scrutinise both their route to supply, and the inventory itself. 2024 will certainly see a continuation of this trend, and I’m predicting that the most advanced players will start to leverage tactics like inventory curation on-mass.
Lastly, I believe 2024 will be the first year we see generative AI start to touch even more advertising channels. We’ve already seen huge strides in search with the launch of tools like Copilot, and its impact on creativity and content generation, but this is only scratching the surface around what’s possible. Next year will be the year we see the application of generative AI models more broadly within advertising, including programmatic, to unlock even more value, create more engaging consumer experiences and increase efficiency and effectiveness.
2024 buzzword prediction: ‘AI’ – of course! ‘Sus-tech’ (although I’m not sure this exists yet).
Lisa Kalyuzhny, RVP, Advertiser Solutions, PubMatic
Next year, programmatic budgets are expected to experience fluctuations. However, the inherent flexibility of programmatic advertising remains a key advantage. The ability to swiftly set up and launch campaigns without the need for upfront commitments positions programmatic as a well-suited solution for uncertain economic times. As agencies and brands navigate this uncertainty, consolidation within the industry is anticipated. Key players will likely optimise their supply chains, emphasising the need for transparency and automation from their partners. The consolidation process is expected to yield efficiencies, creating an environment where programmatic advertising can thrive.
From a digital advertising perspective, maximising efficiency involves considerations such as supply path optimization (SPO), automation, quality, transparency, and sustainability. Looking ahead to 2024, the industry anticipates a growing emphasis on forging close relationships between buyers and publishers. This is evidenced by an increasing number of SPO deals focused on gaining control over the trading process and enhancing transparency.
A strong preference will emerge for solutions capable of leveraging data from publishers and brands. This emphasis on data utilisation aims to enable better targeting of specific audiences at scale, particularly in connected TV (CTV) and commerce media.
While the automation of manual processes is now a standard, technology providers are urged to focus on delivering additional value through data partnerships. These partnerships empower brands and publishers to adapt their strategies in real-time based on a multitude of variables, fostering a more responsive, effective, and relevant digital advertising landscape. An illustrative example of this evolution is the shift from demand- to supply-side targeting, a change proven to enhance CPMs, improve match rates, and reduce wastage.
SPO tools will play a crucial role in helping buyers align their targeting and bidding strategies with key business metrics, moving away from less meaningful digital metrics.
Lastly, sustainability is acknowledged as more than just another key performance indicator (KPI). It is now being considered an integral part of performance measurement and evaluation, to be incorporated alongside other goals. Certain market solutions enable marketers to include carbon emissions as a KPI in their strategy, providing transparency and insights into which channels and campaigns deliver against all relevant goals. This level of insight empowers media planners to create an optimal media mix that minimises carbon emissions while maximising overall performance.
2024 buzzword prediction: CTV, AI, Commerce media, Total Video, cost per attention
David Bauckmann, CTO, ImpressionMedia
This year, we introduced the first in our region option to buy CTV inventory from a premium TV broadcaster and the interest from advertisers has been huge. We expect to expand this to other publishers and grow the unit price of CPT. In this context, I also expect to see the beginning of a decline in demand for display (either smaller formats or less visibility) advertising at the expense of video advertising.
We are slowly starting to address the measurement of the carbon footprint of advertising, but the process is slower than we expected. At some point, however, I foresee a breakthrough and rapid integration for most players in the market.
And of course, we are all in suspense about the end of 3rd party cookies in Chrome. But only the tipping point will show whether we have prepared well
2024 buzzword prediction: CTV, Supply chain / Supply path
Csaba Szabo, Managing Director EMEA, Integral Ad Science
AI will continue to be the hot topic in 2024, and we will start to see more clearly its revolutionary impact on our industry. Everything from targeting audiences, measuring effectiveness, and preventing ad fraud will benefit from AI-driven tools, ensuring marketers can run more effective campaigns. However, while many will use these technologies for good, some bad actors will inevitably utilise AI in ways that will negatively impact online environments. We are already seeing this with the growth of AI-generated, made for advertising (MFA) sites. These and other low-quality ad environments aim to pull ad spend by delivering cheap impressions that deliver on ‘vanity’ metrics. While these may look good in a report, they do little to drive ROI.
A focus on high-quality advertising is therefore vital in the next year to reduce wasted spend and improve the performance of campaigns – especially with budgets continuing to be closely monitored. Quality impressions can mean a number of things to different people, but to me fundamentally it means supporting not only premium content and publishers, but also diverse content creators as well as reducing the carbon footprint of those ad impressions overall.
There are an increasing number of metrics and measurement tools that can be harnessed to gain visibility on the environmental impact of campaigns. Embracing these will be vital in helping the industry to work towards reaching net zero. With effective measurement, advertisers can gain a clear view on the most carbon-intensive parts of the advertising supply chain and utilise a holistic approach to drive better results for both the planet and their campaigns.
Stephanie Donovan, Global Head of Revenue, Triton Digital
Retail Media Networks in the US will outpace digital ad growth in 2024, 14.2% increase vs 11.2%. This year, we’ll see retailers add audio through programmatic exchanges to bolster their multi-channel strategy. Publishers will earn more of the retail media budgets with inventory that can target the listening audience and is aligned with the retailers’ in-store shopper data. We will see that digital audio will demonstrate success in moving traffic to in-store visits as well as upper funnel branding. Advertisers will continue to accelerate spend in audio as they realise they can achieve a similar level of targeting as video and the transparent measurement they have become accustomed to with digital media while expanding their reach and efficacy.
2024 buzzword prediction: Transparency
Aviran Edery, SVP & GM of Marketplace for Verve Group
2024 will be the year the industry begins its shift into the post-privacy future, a world without cookies and IDFAs. we will see this change happen gradually, and then all at once. Companies in denial or slow to embrace this shift will be left behind, as entire technologies will need to be rewritten and cannot be rebuilt overnight, and new solutions for achieving addressability will need to be utilised or invented. This creates opportunity and a great level of market share for those in the open internet with an early lead, each of whom will stake claims for up-for-grabs budgets.
2024 buzzword prediction: Election season. Privacy. Addressability. GPT.
Pete Danks, VP Product, Magnite
Let’s start with the obvious - 1 percent 3p cookie Chrome test begins. It’s small but we can think of this as the tip of a pretty significant iceberg. This is happening, and one day (still tbc based on the ‘phase out’ period but probably not 2024) there will be no 3p cookies powering adtech. The industry will spend a huge amount of time and money testing and refining alternative technology. Less obvious will be the positive outcomes of that - ‘PETs’ (Privacy Enhancing technologies), innovation in contextual classification, and a shift of value back towards publishers (the content, audience and data creators). Beyond this huge topic, whilst there’s a risk that privacy places a general drag on innovation elsewhere, we can expect (hope!?) to see progress on CO2 estimation tools and workflows, growth in CTV supply (especially ad-supported) and the continued explosion of curated marketplaces with a focus on 1p data.
2024 buzzword prediction: for display / browser-based business, “privacy sandbox” in addition for all of us: “addressability” and “sustainability”
Emmanuel Josserand, Sr Dir. Agency, Brand and Industry Relations, FreeWheel
With the growing popularity of advertising-based video on demand (AVOD) and free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST), we will see more premium inventory opening up to programmatic. Marketers will also increasingly look to automation to drive efficiency in areas such as media buying, campaign optimisation, and targeting at scale: a priority for 60% of UK marketers (according to AudienceXpress’ 2023 Advanced TV Uncovered study). We can, therefore, expect advertisers to look more closely at their programmatic strategies and spend more of their budget in this area in 2024.
There will be further moves to replace third-party cookies with ID solutions and contextual targeting. We expect to see the expansion of new metrics like attention to measure ad effectiveness, and others to simplify transactions, such as CPMs rather than GRPs.
There will also be an acceleration of initiatives (particularly around Co2 measurement) and steps toward climate-conscious advertising as more players understand their environmental impact, look for efficiencies and new ways to better collaborate to create more sustainable advertising, across the supply chain.
2024 buzzword prediction: There is no shortage of buzzwords in our industry and with so much going on right now, it feels like 2024 will be particularly buzzword-heavy. Here are my top four predictions.
Tanya Field, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder at Novatiq
2024 we will finally see the end of the road for the cookie therefore 2024 will have a real change in store for the programmatic industry. Publishers will need to look for new ways to identify their audiences in order to monetise their inventory effectively. Advertisers will need to find new ways to deliver addressability so they can reach the right people at the right time in the right place. Agencies will be testing different solutions so they can deliver optimised advertising for their clients. Therefore 2024 is about real change and how we maintain the delivery of personalisation in a massively changed environment and to maintain the open web.
2024 buzzword prediction: Audience addressability (because it will be a significant challenge)
Audio, Retail Media, CTV, DOOH... Where will brands invest in 2024, and what developments will be made in these channels to attract both people and advertisers?
We asked IAB Europe’s Brand Advertising Committee for their predictions on the trends and themes that will shape the industry over the next 12 months. Take a look below to see what they think 2024 will have in store for our industry!
Augustin Decré, Regional Managing Director SEMEA, Index Exchange
In 2024, we'll see efficiency underscore multiple aspects of the industry, signalling a shift towards more streamlined and effective processes.First, we’ll see a renewed interest in supply chain optimisation (SPO) and an industry-wide push for safety, quality, and sustainability. These factors will be key in shaping the strategies of both marketers and media owners. Marketers will continue to lean in and collaborate with partners that drive value, enabling them to maximise their campaign investments.
Programmatic will continue to bring promising opportunities to streaming TV advertising. By recreating the linear TV advertising experience in streaming TV through the adoption of standards, more marketers will leverage the channel, specifically those in markets that have a strong history with TV like France, Italy, and Germany.. Additionally, the rise in programmatic streaming TV will be further boosted by major sports events occurring in the EMEA region, including UEFA Euro 2024 in Germany and the Summer Olympic Games in France, which historically are known to drive significant ad spend.
However, for efficiency to remain at the core of industry's evolution, there are a few challenges to address. One of the main challenges lies in the widespread adoption of industry standards. Industry standards play a pivotal role in enabling scale and innovation within the ad tech landscape, and we’ll see this become more evident in 2024. For instance, OpenRTB 2.6, first released in 2022, is reaching a level of adoption that'll be a tipping point in achieving programmatic scale in streaming TV.
Still on the challenges front, the impending deprecation of third-party cookies within Chrome is top of mind. This will transform addressability in advertising, requiring everyone across the industry to invest in testing and adopting alternative solutions to prepare for a privacy-centric future.
Finally, our ability to collaborate to build a sustainable and accountable industry will also drive efficiency as well as real change. As consumers are choosing to support brands that align with their sustainability and diversity values, this next year will be pivotal for accelerating the alignment of advertising strategies with broader societal values.
Ekkehardt Schlottbohm, RVP Northern Europe, PubMatic
The deprecation of cookies in 2024 will reinvigorate the goldrush for data, further fuelling the rapidly growing CTV and commerce media ecosystems and premium publishers that have been investing in their data activation strategies. There is ample opportunity to expand audiences across these authenticated environments, expanding reach and scale without media owners sacrificing control over their data as they did in the height of the cookie era. Data collaboration between commerce media, CTV and the open web will provide advertisers with greater audience access without the audiences themselves being devalued, which is a massive win for the often disintermediated supply side.
Not only will media owners retain control and ownership of their audience data, audiences themselves will see their data privacy respected in this new paradigm. Putting individuals firmly in control of what data they share and for what purpose means publishers and advertisers need to approach users with a mutually beneficial value exchange, whether that’s through personalised user experiences, reward schemes or exclusive benefits.
However, challenges await in 2024, with increased regulatory scrutiny demanding transparency and responsible targeting practices. Despite these hurdles, the digital advertising market will remain resilient. It will continue to lead the way when it comes to pioneering positive change in challenging areas such as transparency and sustainability.
Anthony Lamy, VP EMEA Client Partnerships, VIDMOB
With ongoing economic pressure and falling advertising spending, many marketers are looking at viable short-term gains to maximise ROI, something that will inevitably creep into 2024. However, this can be damaging in the long run. To ensure long-term connections are made with consumers, brands need to hone in on measuring creative effectiveness to better promote and drive campaign performance.
By using creative data, brands can measure and optimise content based on in-flight analysis and scalable learnings from past campaigns. This will ensure that every available penny of spend is maximised to create unique and impactful campaigns. A stronger outlook, powered by creative performance tools and media data, will help brands to develop more meaningful connections with customers and allow ad budgets to stretch further – making them sustainable beyond simply short-term gains.
Emmanuel Josserand, Sr Dir. Brand, Agency and Industry Relations, FreeWheel
In a challenging economic climate consumers will likely continue to prioritise getting the best deals versus brand loyalty in 2024. The transition from subscription models (SVOD) to hybrid models with ad-funded tiers (HVOD) is a good example of this and we anticipate that these services will further grow next year. This transition, in turn, will provide new opportunities for brand advertisers to reach audiences. Viewers are increasingly omnichannel in their habits according to FreeWheel’s Video Marketplace Report, watching across a broad range of devices to access premium video content, including set-top-box video-on-demand (30%), mobile (29%), CTV (26%), and desktop (15%), and brands need to meet them where they watch.Next year we predict that we will see more broadcasters and streaming services experiment with ways to enhance the ad experience through culturally relevant ads nestled within content, contextual targeting, lower ad loads, and more varied ad formats.
GroupM Nexus team with additional input from Mindshare. Key Contributors: Alex Else, Tom Hudspith, Matt Spraggett, Alex McGibbon, Jason Wescott, Julia Rast, Stef Jansen
CTV will drive global TV spend growth via AVOD, FAST and SVOD with expected growth at 9.5% annually, reaching $45.8 billion in 2028. More SVOD players will use hybrid models for growth whilst Hollywood strikes may cause players to licence content instead of producing originals, leading to short-term ad buying increases & higher CPMs. Advanced TV will become more connected, aligning media and creative storytelling for increased effectiveness. Total Video plans will continue to deliver incremental reach to advertisers.
Commerce solutions for TV will present an unrivalled opportunity for brands to blend TV with data to produce uplifts in retail sales. Addressable TV with commerce data such as stock or footfall, will help identify valuable audience segments and optimise media to business goals. Employing cross channel lens commerce marketing by integrating brands sales, marketing & e-commerce teams, promises a seamless customer experience.
Cross Channel will continue to enable brands to connect all stages of the funnel. With continuing fragmentation of media consumption, identity constraints and complex ad ecosystems driven by walled gardens, advertisers will need a complete view of performance, the ability to measure outcomes effectively to realise cross channel benefits. Data will be key in enabling advertisers to utilise first party data, incorporating wider metrics including attention and impact, whilst zero-party data will be critical to any privacy-first marketing ecosystem. Advertisers to deliver on sustainability by combining emission related insights, industry backed standards and the ability to control where budgets are spent.
AI will continue to dominate headlines and affect cross channel capabilities. Models for rapid asset creation are taking centre stage, as are AI tools for predicting audience reactions. As more brands unlock the potential of AI, having a clear creative vision that enables them to connect with consumers in a human and unique way will be more crucial than ever. As AI scales there will be a growing emphasis on safety and security. Bias interruption in the use of AI will be key and we can expect new technologies to mitigate disinformation as a result.
Podcast audience growth, new audio formats and 2 strategic developments mean integrating audio advertising will drive Total AV in 2024. Firstly, audio’s role in omnichannel strategies, offering efficiency throughout the funnel, driving attention, reach, and impact on par with other channels. Secondly, an evolution of tools enabling advertisers to measure incremental reach from digital over linear, aligning measurement to allow advertisers to make clever investments that gain efficiency and reach.
Sound increasingly underpins brand identity. Gen Z streamed 500bn songs and 3bn podcast episodes in the first half of 2023, marking a 76% increase from 2022. We can expect music and entertainment to become a bigger part of the marketing mix in 2024.
Gaming has become a global phenomenon, ranking third among the world's most popular pastimes. Despite this advertising spend has been slow requiring renewed focus on utilising gaming as a powerful tool for extending reach. Education in its ability to reach diverse audiences and provide engaging experiences, showcasing how gaming can grab attention via data, amplifying media partnerships with programmatic gaming media, and a focus to measure all media on the same scale will enable gaming to reap the benefits in 2024.
Influencer marketing, estimated to be worth $22.2bn by 2025, is coming of age and with the rise of iCommerce, influencers are selling directly to consumers. The intersection between influencers and SEO will be a game-changer as brands continue to form partnerships that defy convention, becoming immersed in esports and co-creating with artists.
Top buzzwords for 2024
2024 buzzword prediction:
Sum up 2023 in one or two words:
In this week’s guest member blog post, we caught up with Wayne Tassie, Group Director, Integrated Solutions EMEA at DoubleVerify. Wayne dives into what Artificial Intelligence (AI) is to our industry, how we should approach this and how it can benefit your company. To find out more read below.
When a concept such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) resurfaces in Media, we as a collective community tend to laser focus on the emerging topic. We strive to decipher ‘our’ position, through a matrixed lens that aligns with both corporate and personal beliefs. Cookie deprecation, Attention metrics, custom algorithms and hybrid working are themes that we have communally debated over the last few years. AI is the current thought-provoking subject matter, sending us down the rabbit hole of internalised contemplation. Our cerebration leaning towards questions such as, how does this trending concept affect my role and my team? What impact does this have on our company? What is ‘our’ POV, how do we stay ahead of the curve? How do I effectively communicate this to my customers, and is this a subject that they actually care about?
The truth is that AI is an old trusted friend within digital advertising, and should not be sending us into a collective state of hyper-consideration. It has underpinned product R&D for the last two decades and has been fundamental within programmatic interoperability, since its conception. Whilst AI in its most recent iteration, will increasingly remove the heavy lifting across programmatic trading and optimisation, there are always going to be elements that require human centricity and hands on interaction.
DoubleVerify (DV) leverages AI for ontological content classification and fraud analysis as there's just too much data out there for humans in silo to process or react to it as fast as AI with machine learning and machine execution. Our recent partnership and acquisition of Scibids, underpins our belief that custom AI driven algorithms are the future of our industry when it comes to driving quality media, performance and quantifiable outcomes. AI is required for any multivariate programmatic buying - as in weighing multiple data points and data sources against each other to figure out what inventory to buy, at what price with maximum potential for optimisation. Volume of data is a key factor for the use of AI, but campaign complexity and the human-resource it takes to manage multiple campaigns on an ongoing basis is a driver as well. Putting aside the increase in performance or decrease in cost, traders can very easily find themselves in a position where they could generate the insights, but not have time to analyse the data effectively or action data driven decisions off the back of their analysis. DV Attention solutions are another example where Scibids AI streamlines programmatic optimisation towards high-attention creatives for our brand and agency partners. This approach supports a more data driven dialogue between brand stakeholders and their creative agencies.
When it comes to attribution, 'success' needs to be meticulously defined. Whilst we still come across CTR, CPC and CPA campaigns on lower funnel attribution, complex bespoke metrics around quality, attention and outcomes have become increasingly commonplace on mid to upper funnel activity. Tying this complexity back across the whole customer journey, manually, is a non-option. Paradoxically, using non-traditional emerging AI driven attribution models, was always going to create an element of scepticism, before trust was built with all parties across the transaction; both supply side and demand side. The value exchange between the maturation of AI and advertiser performance has burned bright in recent years. Taking their favourite outcomes data sets, such as purchase data, and feeding it seamlessly into programmatic models throughout the funnel, has defined success, meticulously….
Can AI go one step further in 2024 to solve the sustainability conundrum, regarding how we balance green media at the potential detriment of campaign performance? Is there enough sustainable inventory, and what are the real-world implications on investment, benchmarking and media CPMs. For me, next year will be when sustainable prioritisation will be high on the agenda. AI optimised programmatic investment in the open market (OMP) is where we will define the status quo and green-scale.
All things considered, AI ubiquity does not mean that we as an industry are sacrificing human or customer centricity in favour of a simulation of human intelligence between programmatic systems. AI cannot and will never replace customer service, customer satisfaction, human interaction or relationship building. People still buy into people, and whether consciously or subconsciously, base part of the decision making, regarding whom they want to partner with, on chemistry, relationships and friendship. As it should be.
About DoubleVerify
DoubleVerify (“DV”) (NYSE: DV) is a leading software platform for digital media measurement and analytics. Our mission is to make the digital advertising ecosystem stronger, safer and more secure, thereby preserving the fair value exchange between buyers and sellers of digital media. Hundreds of Fortune 500 advertisers employ our unbiased data and analytics to drive campaign quality and effectiveness, and to maximise return on their digital advertising investments – globally. Learn more at www.doubleverify.com.
How ready is the digital advertising industry for a post-third-party cookie world? Share your insights and expertise in our survey today.
With less than a year to go before third-party cookies are deprecated in Chrome, we are keen to understand how the digital advertising industry is gearing up for this new era. We invite stakeholders from across the industry to take part in a short survey to help us understand the level of readiness, which solutions are being tested, and where our industry needs more support.
Your valuable input will only take a few minutes to share and will be kept strictly confidential. The survey is open for your participation until Thursday 21st December 2023.
Your commitment to helping us advance knowledge in this area is greatly appreciated.
Brussels, 23rd November, 2023 — IAB Europe, the leading European-level industry association for the digital advertising ecosystem, has today released its highly anticipated ‘2023 Attitudes to Programmatic Advertising’ Report. The ninth edition of this annual survey offers a comprehensive overview of the current state and future trends of programmatic advertising in Europe.
The survey received 396 respondents from advertisers, agencies, publishers and ad tech vendors in 31 markets, with respondents having both pan-European and Global remits. The majority of respondents were programmatic or media buying specialists. Just under half of all respondents represent buy-side stakeholders (20% advertisers; 24% agencies) and the majority command ad budgets of more than 11 Million Euros, with just over 10% having responsibilities of 150m+ advertising budgets.
Resilient Programmatic Investment
The 2023 survey sheds light on a resurgent industry, rebounding from the dips observed in the 2022 survey. Programmatic investment is on an upswing, especially from the buy side. Notably, 54% of advertisers now allocate over 41% of their digital campaigns to programmatic investment, marking a significant increase from the previous year. IAB Europe’s report on the findings confirm that the digital advertising market remains firmly rooted in its programmatic-first approach, with 58% of non-social display spend transacted programmatically. This resilience is particularly noteworthy amid challenging global conditions, conflicts and escalating inflation.
Operational models are evolving, indicating a shift towards in-housing for advertisers.
While 27% cite in-house as their main operational model, a hybrid approach combining in-house and outsourcing remains prevalent for 42% of respondents. Looking ahead, the report indicates that two-thirds of advertisers are considering bringing programmatic trading in-house in the next 12 months but questions remain on whether there will be the finances in place to make this switch.
Drivers and Barriers to Programmatic Investment:
Cost efficiencies continue to be the primary driver for programmatic investment, particularly for agencies but there’s a notable shift for Advertisers who emphasise operational efficiencies and audience discovery. Barriers to programmatic adoption include concerns about the quality of media and political/economic factors. Notably, agencies show a growing concern for sustainability, ranking it as their top barrier to programmatic investment.
Measurement and Data Strategy:
Traditional metrics such as CPMs and CPVs remain important, despite a growing focus on quality metrics like viewability, fraud, and brand safety. The report highlights a notable increase in the lack of measurement of programmatic campaigns, with 30% of advertisers and 22% of agencies not measuring campaign success.
First-party data usage is on the rise, with 88% of publishers and 81% of agencies utilising it. The industry is witnessing a resurgence in third-party data usage, with 81% of agencies currently using it, a significant increase from the previous year.
Future of Programmatic:
AI emerges as the number one key driver of programmatic growth for advertisers. Publishers identify audio and retail media as their top two growth areas for programmatic. Retail media, especially, gains strong backing from ad tech vendors, with 43% selecting it as the top driver. Connected TV remains a consistent driver for all stakeholder groups.
Progress Towards Net Zero:
In 2023, new questions were included to ascertain stakeholders views on the role that sustainability plays in programmatic advertising. Over 80% of respondents acknowledge sustainability as a strategic focus. Advertisers lead the way, with 44% stating that sustainable programmatic advertising is a key part of their strategy. Agencies perceive progress towards Net Zero, with over half of respondents believing there has been some progress. The 2023 Programmatic Advertising Report paints a vivid picture of an industry not just rebounding but evolving. It captures the resilience, adaptability, and a growing commitment to sustainability, setting the stage for a new era in European digital advertising. The report, written by industry experts from IAB Europe’s membership, forms part of a comprehensive programme of pan-European educational and guidance outputs published by the IAB Europe Programmatic Trading Committee. The full report with accompanying graphs can be downloaded from IAB Europe’s website here.
Retail Media is transforming the digital advertising ecosystem and how brands invest in it. In a recent IAB Europe survey, Retail Media buyers and sellers were asked about which standards are most important for investment, and the majority of buyers (90%) and sellers (84%) cited media and attribution measurement.
To dive into this a little further, experts from our Retail Media Committee share their insight into the type of measurement and metrics that buyers expect from a Retail Media Network.
A big thank you to the following contributors for sharing their thoughts:
Q. What measurement data do you expect from any Retail Media Network?
Diana: I expect basic media measurement including reach metrics (impressions/footfall); viewability, and engagement metrics (clicks, reactions/shares); video views; and sales attribution metrics (still likely to be last-touch attribution). However, retailers need to move past this very quickly, to providing fully de-duped multi-touch attribution measurement at a campaign level.
Rutmer: Since retail media has the advantage of closed-loop measurement, reporting on sales including transparent attribution is essential, both for offline, online and across different advertising tools within the consumer journey that retailers are offering. Campaign delivery data should also include costs (CPM/CPC), reach and engagement insights where feasible. For the offline channel we often see retailers offering sales uplift based on store comparisons (considering store profiles that are comparable) and for example D-OTS (digital opportunity to see) for in-store screens. The online channel; has a lot more data such as unique reach, impressions (based on viewability standards), clicks, add-to-carts, conversions, sales and ROAS. Metrics such as new-to-brand and share of voice are also starting to become more standard, so I would expect these insights as well.
Mark: Agencies and advertisers should expect the same media quality assurances they would see from any other digital campaign. It’s important to have standardisation across media types for accurate channel comparison and effective media planning. Comprehensive media quality coverage includes measurement of the following; brand safety, viewability, IVT/fraud, and geo verification. These types of media quality measurements are crucial to ensure effective and efficient media spend.
Christian: We are focused on in-store Retail Media. Our key objective is to make in-store shoppers addressable in real-time, like online media channels. So, similar to online, the fundamental metrics aim to measure engagement opportunities for the upper funnel and attributable direct sales for the lower. The basic metric for engagement is audience reach, measured through unique shoppers, impressions, and their respective ratios. For sales, its transaction data that is sliced and diced into the most relevant sub-totals such as SKU sales, item sales, etc.
Laura: Standard reporting should be real time and include media campaign performance across the purchase funnel, eg: Reach, Viewable Impressions, Video completion rates, Clicks, CTR, Page views, Units sold, paid sales (value), conversion rate CR, Repeat Purchase rate RPR, New to Brand NTB, ROAS, Add to cart.
Additionally, retailer specific benchmarks for high level categories updated on regular basis, for main KPIs such as CTR, CR, ROAS, etc
Q. What additional metrics (beyond the basics) have you received from Retail Media Networks that you thought were valuable?
Diana: I have found the following insights valuable for evaluating media effectiveness and to build a more holistic story around campaign performance:reach v frequency; new v loyal buyers; incremental sales; customer journey insights; basket affinity; shopper mission; shopper lifestage/segment.
Rutmer: In the current state of the industry, metrics beyond the basics play an important role in offering a more holistic perspective on retail media, a crucial aspect on the path to maturity. We see here that retailers are starting to provide more insights on the ‘true’ value of multiple retail media touchpoints and interaction effects next to last touch attribution. These insights are needed to determine the right mix of tools to reach a certain brand goal for our clients. This can be for instance incremental sales, increasing reach or penetration within a target group or increasing brand awareness related KPIs. This is often done with the help of retailers in combination with an independent research company and the agency, ideally it contains multiple retailers and channels to be able to compare retail media against other media channels also taking into account costs. Besides media insights, brand and category are sometimes shared as well and can be used to identify opportunities for brands to grow. Examples are traffic and conversion insights versus competition, path to purchase insights, market basket insights etc.
Dirk: Additional metrics that we might provide include; customer lifetime revenue (new to brand customer: forecast for 12 months), category share/growth, retail baseline.
Mark: We’re seeing more demand for Attention metrics. This expands on the concept of viewability by incorporating Engagement and Exposure. Engagement is the measurement of user interaction including variables such as user presence and ad interaction. Exposure is the measurement of ad presentation including metrics such as viewable time and share of screen. Together, these advanced measurements combine to form a more sophisticated understanding of use and ad interaction. This is important for on-site media where viewability rates may be lower, but Attention can be higher; showing a different type of user interaction with retail media advertising.
Christian: At first, it's essential to stress the physical peculiarities of the in-store environment compared to online. Many more products vie for the attention of every single shopper at the same time. Also, it has to be considered that physical store media operates in a one-to-many environment. This makes it more complex than most online environments. Therefore, smart metrics for in-store Retail Media should help brands understand this "noise" in an actionable way.
Assessing the impression frequency per unique shopper helps understand the density of ad exposure within the stores. For more tailored analyses, the measurements should extend to segment-specific figures for views and view times to equip brands with crucial insights into their creative process. This can help answer questions like whether a simple packshot plus price is the best or if there is some need for creative execution with animation, etc.
Laura: Media agencies and advertisers have always been looking to understand the sales contribution of each channel in the marketing mix, to be able to optimise investment allocation to improve performance. Retail media is now competing for budgets with the rest of the media plan, and therefore there is a need to understand the incremental lift driven by activating retail powered audiences on and off retail platforms, versus direct investment in core media channels. Sales uplift studies should become the norm for large retailers looking to unlock advertising $.
With retailers evolving their measurement capabilities it is expected that customer insights (browsing and purchase behaviour, basket composition, repeat purchase rate, lifetime value), category insights SOV, SOM and benchmarks to become standard requirements to inform and drive rigour and accountability in the strategic planning process.
Q. How do you put these metrics to use as part of your future buying decisions?
Diana: Across the board from annual strategy development, budgeting, testing and prioritisation through to individual campaign planning.
Typical use cases include:
Rutmer: These insights hold significant importance for us as they play a crucial role in assessing alignment with specific brand objectives for our clients. Our primary aim is to gain a comprehensive understanding of how various retail media networks can help achieve these goals and how effective different tools are within a network. This is often combined with broader information from clients on retailer relationships and challenges. We are continuously testing different tools, creatives and prioritising the right networks, tools and creatives that work well for our clients in achieving their goals.
Dirk: Media buyers and brands can use the metrics to evaluate the spend as follows:
Mark: Having a deeper understanding of media quality and performance in retail media will help inform better campaign optimisations, as well as larger media investment decisions. We see increased measurement opportunities as a maturing of the retail media vertical and early adopters will benefit the most from this increased sophistication.
Christian: The major challenge for physical stores is that they need to be equipped with sensors to have real-time data to work with. Only then can you run effectively through a multi-stage optimisation process. As described earlier, first, you optimise the creative effectiveness to leverage media budgets better. Do the creatives get enough view time? Do call-to-actions lead to acceptable conversion rates? Are there meaningful differences across the segments in-store that we can act upon?
Phase two is to look into planning. There is no "search field" in in-store journeys, so trips are not cut short after an item grab, and the whole trip is overall more linear. This means planning engagement across different categories and cross-selling has more tactical depth than online. Repeated engagement across different categories will yield better sales conversion for some segments, justifying extra ad spend. Finding this sweet spot for every segment, product, and category is where real-time addressability plays to its strength.
Laura: We use sales uplift studies, MMMs and customer and category insights to inform planning process and determine budget allocation across channels, based on client goals, portfolio, growth drivers, allocation between search vs display/video, on and off platform. We look at retailers’ media capability, maturity, and off platform reach to feed into the annual planning process. Budgeting is an ongoing process throughout the year, based on performance signals.
Q. How can brands measure across on-site and off-site campaigns effectively?
Diana: With difficulty if you are buying off-site across multiple networks. Every platform will claim the sale, and many do not currently provide measurement data at the right level of granularity. Retailers need to own their own measurement through ad tagging and tracking customer touchpoints (ad views) as they lead to a sale either online or in-store. For this they need ad platforms to provide ad view data at user level (anonymised) which they can then attribute to the purchase by that user of the promoted product. Retailers should adopt industry standard methodology, and make the reporting available within the buyer platform of choice through APIs.
Rutmer: This is a challenge for retailers and having a good loyalty system that is able to track user behaviour across different channels is essential when in-store is added in the channel mix as well. For providing on-site and off-site integrated measurement, unified data collection (taking into account privacy compliance) and modelling would be needed to look beyond last touch attribution based data from different touch points.
Dirk: I completely agree with Diana’s comment, it is very difficult to measure across on and off-site channels currently.
Christian: On online channels, Retail Media has the USP that measurements are based on personal shopper data. In physical stores, sensors only generate anonymous data to keep privacy front and centre. This creates the classic challenge to work with deterministic and probabilistic data at the same time. But of course, you still want to bridge the gap between online and in-store. The way we address this for the upper funnel is to align in-store segments as best as possible with online. You don't need to know who somebody is as long as you have the relevant attributes used to target in every category. Probabilistic IDs will work very well.
For the lower funnel, you need conclusive shopper data, which is why here we work backwards. Retail Media Networks (RMN) know their customers through loyalty and what they have bought. We, on the other hand, can provide anonymous full-funnel in-store journeys that start with the screen engagement and end at the till. The RMN now matches both data sets for its permissioned customer data. In this way, the network unlocks insights for the customers who want to be known while making it technically impossible for everybody else. This process can be managed over a data clean room, adding an extra privacy layer with access controls and audit trails.
Laura: Right now the last click attribution model favours point of sale on platform retail media tactics. The ability to change the attribution model should help make the upper and middle funnel tactics accountable for driving sales alongside lower funnel tactics. I am hopeful that in the future the adoption of clean rooms at scale will facilitate linear attribution models and a more comprehensive path to purchase analysis to become standard reporting.
Find out more
IAB Europe’s Retail Media Committee is at the forefront of the retail media industry. Members are driving retail media growth and shaping the landscape by:
Find out more about getting involved by contacting Marie-Clare Puffett - puffett [@] iabeurope.eu
In this week’s member guest blog post we caught up with James Allison, Director Market Development at Advertima. In this exciting and informative piece James looks at how In-Store Audience Segmentation impacts Retail Media performance.
In-store shoppers are a crucial audience for grocery and FMCG advertisers. However, traditional in-store digital signage has been unable to compete with online Retail Media, thanks to the latter’s real-time targeting and measurement capabilities.
Traditional digital signage cannot offer real-time audience segmentation, shopper targeting, or campaign measurement to the level advertisers are used to with online digital advertising.
While advertisers want to reach the 80% of grocery shoppers who prefer physical stores, they will not do so at the cost of targeted communications and verifiable performance metrics.
As a result, in-store Retail Media tends to get left out of mainstream Retail Media plans.
Smart Digital Signage Can Transform In-store Retail Media Performance
To capture Retail Media budgets, set to exceed $230 billion by 2027, retailers will need to upgrade to smart digital signage. They need in-store media solutions to digitise and monetise in-store audiences, just like online audiences.
Fortunately, advanced in-store Retail Media technology is making that possible. Solutions, like Advertima’s In-store Audience Creator, are pioneering never-before in-store digitisation, targeting, and measurement capabilities, which turn traditional digital signage into smart digital signage and bring in-store Retail Media performance at par with online Retail Media.
Let’s find out how.
Real-time Audience Segmentation for Smarter Targeting
With the average person exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of ads, depending on where they live, relevance is valued by both advertisers and shoppers.
Traditional in-store digital signage run looped playouts based on the time, location, or other ‘non-audience centric’ parameters. However, it isn’t possible to gather insights about who watched the ad and whether they found it relevant.
On the other hand, smart digital signage can play ad creatives targeted to addressable audiences in real-time based on predefined advertiser segments.
How Real-Time Segmentation Targeting Impacts In-Store Media Performance
● Better value proposition leads to higher CPMs: Retailers can shift away from ‘location-based’ to ‘audience-centric’ media offerings.
● More efficient use of ad inventory: Because each playout is targeted in real-time (not loop-based), advertising campaigns reach more monetisable audiences per playout for a defined target group. Reaching more targeted and relevant shoppers within the same period of time increases each playout’s value. .
● More sellable ad inventory: Because campaign goals are reached faster with fewer targeted playouts, retailers can sell more campaigns on the same inventory and increase profits from the same number of screens.
● Better ROAS: For advertisers, Smart Targeting means more effective ad spending, increased ROAS, and less wastage as targeted ads are only delivered to verified and relevant audiences who match the pre-defined seller segment criteria.
Performance Metrics and Audience Insights
It is no longer enough for media owners to provide playback logs that prove an ad was shown (where, when, and how many times).
Advertisers today want to know why the ad was shown in the first place, whom it reached, and how it performed compared to other creatives, segments, or media networks.
How Real-time Metrics Impact In-Store Retail Media Performance
Traditional in-store media measures indicative post-campaign performance. Real-time reports help track and measure impact for optimal budget utilisation while the campaign is still ongoing.
Campaign Analytics
Creative Analytics
Predictive Analytics
Network Analytics
Download the Free White Paper.
Get additional insights and learn more about how retailers can transform in-store shoppers into monetisable media audiences and unlock their full potential right now.
In this week’s member guest blog post we caught up with Emmanuel Josserand, Sr Dir. Brand, Agency and Industry Relations, at FreeWheel. In this insightful piece Emmanuel looks at audience viewing habits in an ever-changing environment, reflecting on FreeWheel’s new report.
For more on the findings from FreeWheel’s Video Marketplace Report keep reading.
As consumers' viewing habits shifted with the escalating costs of streaming video, publishers had to adjust to creating a new age of premium video, with ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) platforms growing to complement subscription video on demand (SVOD).
This has resulted in a hybrid approach where the lines between SVOD and AVOD are blurring.
HVOD or Hybrid video on demand describes video on demand platforms that have a mix of offers – usually including a discounted subscription tier that contains ad-supported content as well as paid/free offers, with/ without subscription fees.
As subscription services move toward advertising options, premium video publishers must craft optimal viewer experiences across devices and content types.
Our latest Video Marketplace Report (VMR) for the first half of 2023, explores the digital video advertising landscape for the US and EUR*, looking into audience viewing habits, current distribution of ad views by platform and devices, as well as updates on programmatic adoption.
Key highlights:
- Hybrid video on demand (HVOD) services are becoming more prevalent as subscription premium video platforms embrace ad-supported tiers.
- Ad view growth has increased at a healthy rate in both the United States (6%) and Europe (15%), despite a period of industry-wide change and economic uncertainty.
- Optimising the viewer experience is increasing in necessity as audiences are inundated with choices for watching ad-supported premium video content.
Despite continued economic caution among marketers, ad view growth on premium video remained healthy in both the U.S. and Europe in the first half of 2023, with 6% and 15% growth respectively. There continues to be significant regional differences in viewing habits. Large screen viewing through Connected TV (CTV) and set-top-box (STB) platforms make up 80% of ad views in the U.S., while in Europe, audiences split their time between large (53%) versus small screens (47%).
In the U.S., there is an 80% increase in ad placements that utilise audience targeting, part of a trend towards refining the viewer experience through a push for relevancy in the ads served to individual viewers. Whereas in Europe, due to stringent data regulations (such as GDPR) and less data fluidity, targeting is primarily based on demographics.
U.S. ad views are evenly split across live and video-on-demand (VOD); in Europe — where free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) adoption is slower and linear remains strong — audiences are largely accessing video on demand (80%) to watch long-form content. The Live opportunity has not yet been realised, accounting for only 18% of ad views.
With available inventory increasing, particularly with the proliferation of HVOD services, optimising the consumer viewing experience is becoming a critical consideration for media companies now more than ever.
Additionally, while programmatic is growing steadily in the U.S. representing 35% of premium video transactions, in Europe programmatic stands at 19% of transactions, half of them being guaranteed.
The data set used for this VMR report is one of the largest available on the usage and monetisation of professional, rights-managed ad supported video content worldwide and is based on aggregated advertising data collected through the FreeWheel platform. This edition of the VMR, explores video advertising trends for the first half of 2023 (1H 2023) in the U.S. and Europe*.
*European countries included: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Nordics countries, Spain and the United Kingdom
Today, IAB Europe published a summary of the solution approach for supply chain standards which has been created to help online platforms meet supplementary advertising transparency requirements imposed on them by the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
Under the DSA, online platforms must provide users with certain information about every ad carried on their sites or apps. The information must be available for each ad. IAB Europe’s DSA Ads Transparency Taskforce has developed a specification for an industry solution to enable the collection and delivery, and facilitate user-facing disclosures, of the required information. The document we are now sharing is a summary of product requirements and solutions, explaining how the standardised protocol will work and what different participants in the ecosystem will need to do to help responsible parties comply with these new DSA transparency requirements.
The protocol is a complete solution in that it provides the minimum elements necessary to facilitate communication between parties of the information necessary to make DSA-compliant disclosures. Implementers will then have the flexibility to render the DSA Transparency to end-users using their own preferred methods. Our protocol leverages existing mechanisms already in place in the supply chain, including the OpenRTB bid request/response. This is not a self-regulatory program
While not all content publishers meet the definition of online platform under the DSA, there are many, diverse, ad-supported content providers that do.
The DSA requires that, in conjunction with ads served on online platforms, the platform is responsible for disclosing certain information about an ad:
Given the nature of the digital advertising ecosystem, it is common, even typical, that online platforms do not themselves have all of the data needed to populate the information disclosures. Therefore, IAB Europe set out to standardise a protocol for compiling and delivering the required information through the ad supply chain such that it could be received by the online platform, or another party acting on its behalf, to make the disclosures to users.
In July 2022, IAB Europe convened a stakeholder taskforce for this purpose. The taskforce is made up of companies from diverse segments of the industry. Experts from these companies have met approximately weekly to develop and finalise an initial version of our industry solution for delivery of DSA ads transparency. Now with partnership with IAB Tech Lab, the IAB Europe Taskforce can fully focus on policy/legal questions so that IAB Tech Lab can focus on technical questions.
Our mandate for the taskforce was to produce a minimum viable product that would facilitate implementation of the ads transparency disclosures. Our anticipation was that, although standardisation was not absolutely necessary, Platforms could work organically with their partners to develop their own approaches to gathering the necessary information. Without a standardised protocol, it would be a chaotic and friction-filled process to navigate. With some standardisation, companies could be more effectively aligned.
One of our guiding principles was that our protocol should be adaptable to the many diverse circumstances in the ecosystem; there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
In the same spirit of flexibility and adaptability, our view is that platform publishers, since they are legally responsible under the DSA, should have control over (and visibility into) disclosures being made to their users, if they want it. But we also aimed to support optionality such that the disclosures could be made from within the ad creative. We explicitly sought to make it possible for platforms to put the information behind the widely-used AdChoices icon.
Other principles that guided our work were:
The attached Summary Document is not the full specification. The full specification will be published by IAB Tech Lab, in collaboration with IAB Europe. It will will become an official part of TechLab’s corpus of standards and specifications that define how the industry operates.
The Summary Document explains how the protocol works, and in many areas, the reasons why it is designed as it is. It provides enough information for companies to begin implementation. In our view, the bulk of the work of implementation falls into two areas:
These tasks can be started while awaiting the final technical specification. IAB Tech Lab will now steward the draft specification in order to undergo Tech Lab’s Working Group processes to update and finalise.
The Summary Document also suggests areas for future work, which IAB Europe looks forward to taking on in collaboration with TechLab.
If you have questions about the taskforce or the DSA specification, you may direct them to dsateam@iabeurope.eu. We look forward to continuing to support the industry in advancing transparency and choice for internet users.
Download the Summary Document here
22 September 2023 - Brussels, Belgium – This week, at DMEXCO, Cologne, IAB Europe, the European level association for the digital marketing and advertising ecosystem, hosted a meeting for its Board of Directors to designate a new Chair, Vice Chair, and other Officers.
Thomas Duhr, Member of the Board of the Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft (BVDW), was elected Chair, with Bethan Crockett, Legal Counsel at GroupM, taking Vice Chair. Jon Mew, CEO of IAB UK, was appointed Treasurer. Thomas Mendrina, Senior Director Partner Sales CEEMEA at Microsoft, Pierre Devoize, Deputy CEO of IAB France, Reyes Justribo, CEO of IAB Spain, and Marianne Bugge-Zederkof, Deputy CEO of Danske Medier, complete the new Executive Committee.
Reflecting on the timing of his appointment, Thomas Duhr noted that the new Board’s mandate coincides with the final months of the current European Commission and first year of the incoming one. “The digital advertising and marketing industry in Europe is entering a vital period. The importance of our industry for the European markets and society is steadily increasing. With this growth comes an ever-increasing responsibility”, said Duhr. “The role of IAB Europe, European national associations and corporate members is to build bridges between policy makers, civil society, science and our industry. It is about nothing less than securing and strengthening Europe‘s competitiveness in times of disruptive technological change. This is the only way to shape a successful future for generations to come.”
Townsend Feehan, IAB Europe CEO, welcomed the new Executive Committee as a diverse group whose breadth of experience would provide strong leadership for the organisation. “It is hard to imagine a more interesting time for a trade association than the present, as governments in Europe and beyond seek new ways to engage with industry to understand the world around them and the implications for their citizens, and make policy choices; IAB Europe is lucky to have a Board and Executive Committee that combine the vision, energy, and sense of responsibility that this one does to lead that engagement.”
Visit IAB Europe’s website for more information on the full board of Directors.
IAB Europe Launches new Retailer Only Council to Advance its work on Retail Media in Europe
Since IAB Europe’s multi-stakeholder Retail Media Working Group launched in October 2022, members have been busy working on a number of initiatives to help educate and advance the retail media landscape including creating European level ‘agreed’ definitions, producing a 101 Guide and the development of market insights. The next phase for the group is to turn its attention to standards. A recent IAB Europe survey of over 100 Retail Media buyers and sellers found that over two thirds of buyers (70%) think the lack of standards for Retail Media is a barrier to investment.
To help advance the groups work on creating standards, it is key to have buy-in and support from retailers. IAB Europe has therefore created a new exclusive council for retailers.
This new Council will sit alongside the existing Working Group as a forum for trusted exchange between retailers in order to enable collaborative conversations, develop standards and enable retail media in Europe to thrive. Retailers who operate in at least one European market are eligible to become members of IAB Europe and join the Retailer Council as well as the multi-stakeholder Retail Media Working Group.
Meeting on a regular basis, the Council will review and input to IAB Europe’s key work tracks on retail media including the development of standards. Members of the Council will also have the opportunity to exchange best practices, share insights and innovations in a closed ‘retailers only’ forum.
