We’re delighted to welcome Booking.com as a new member of IAB Europe, marking an exciting step forward as we continue to broaden our engagement across key commerce-driven sectors. As one of the world’s leading digital travel platforms, Booking.com brings invaluable perspective and expertise from the travel ecosystem - a sector playing an increasingly important role in the expansion of Commerce Media in Europe.
As Commerce Media matures beyond retail, sectors such as travel and financial services are rapidly innovating in how media is planned, activated, and measured. Bringing these sectors into the conversation is essential to ensuring that industry standards remain relevant, practical, and future-proof.
Through the work of our Retail & Commerce Media Committee, we aim to convene leading commerce media networks across travel and financial services to align on shared measurement priorities, build on our existing commerce media measurement standards, and identify sector-specific needs, gaps, and opportunities.
To kick off this collaboration, we spoke with Bram van Asperen, Senior Commercial Manager - Advertising at Booking.com to get his perspective on Commerce Media, measurement, and the role of standards in driving growth.
“In my role, I spend a lot of time in the engine room of a global marketplace. On a daily basis, we’re navigating different regional regulations, diverse partner expectations and the technical complexity that comes with operating an ad business across many markets.
What I’m most looking forward to in joining IAB Europe is the opportunity to step out of that day-to-day execution and into a broader industry conversation. Being part of this community allows us to share what we’ve learned at scale, while also learning from others who are solving similar challenges in different sectors.
One of the biggest opportunities I see right now is creating a shared language around Commerce Media - clearer definitions, aligned expectations and more consistent ways of explaining value and measurement. When we get that right, it reduces friction for advertisers, agencies and platforms alike.
Ultimately, being part of IAB Europe is about helping Commerce Media grow in a way that is more standardised, transparent and sustainable - not just for the largest players, but for the ecosystem as a whole.”
“Commerce Media has already been key at Booking.com, and it allows us to introduce unique dynamics to the conversation because the path to purchase is rarely linear. These are high-consideration, emotionally driven decisions often planned weeks or months in advance. Consequently, Commerce Media in travel isn’t just a transactional engine; it’s about curating a more helpful travel journey from the initial spark of inspiration through to the final booking.
This creates a unique opportunity for both endemic and non-endemic partners to engage with a high-intent audience in a context that is incredibly accurate. A 'confirmed booker' signals a clear window of intent. This milestone marks the transition from inspiration to preparation, creating a unique opportunity for brands to offer relevant products like apparel, travel tech or insurance exactly when the traveller is most likely to need them.
As we facilitate the entire travel lifecycle, we can offer partners privacy-safe, anonymised audience insights that aren't available elsewhere at this scale. As the industry evolves, our priority remains the careful stewardship of the customer experience. By balancing deep audience signals with a 'privacy-by-design' approach, we ensure that travellers get a more tailored experience and we deliver value to a wider array of partners without ever compromising the trust or digital safety of our customers.”
“One of our core priorities is building measurement frameworks that are both credible and realistic. At Booking.com, this carries particular responsibility as we operate in a highly regulated environment where privacy, data protection and consumer trust are non-negotiable.
On the one hand, our partners expect robust measurement and optimisation capabilities that clearly demonstrate the value and impact of their investment, and on the other hand, we have a duty to ensure that data is handled responsibly and in full compliance with evolving regulatory standards. We do not see these objectives as competing, but as foundational to how Commerce Media should be built and scaled.
This challenge is not unique to travel. We see strong alignment with other sectors such as retail and finance, where the focus is equally on proving incrementality and long-term impact through privacy-safe, first-party data. Through our participation in IAB Europe, we aim to contribute to cross-industry standards that acknowledge these regulatory realities, while still enabling the level of transparency and insight advertisers need to make informed decisions.”
“The release of the Commerce Media Measurement Standards V2 is an important step forward, and I’m particularly encouraged to see that dedicated travel standards are on the roadmap for 2026. From my perspective, leading the commercial team at Booking.com, there are a few areas where travel requires a more nuanced treatment to fully align with the broader Commerce Media framework.
First, extended lookback windows are critical. While V2 establishes a 30-day default for endemic brands, travel is inherently a high-consideration purchase with longer planning cycles. Validating more flexible attribution windows would allow measurement to better reflect the full journey - from initial inspiration through to booking - which in travel can span several weeks or even months.
Second, the definition of “confirmed sales” requires additional clarity for travel. The distinction between Gross and Net Sales in the current standards is a vital foundation, but travel introduces a significant delay between the booking (the transaction) and the actual stay (the consumption). This creates inherent complexity and slowness in measuring final results. We need to validate standards for how cancellations are reflected when they occur months after the media exposure, while also establishing frameworks for the specific estimations we use to bridge that measurement gap.
Finally, there is an opportunity to further elevate upper- and mid-funnel measurement. Given the amount of research travellers undertake, conversion-led metrics such as ROAS only capture part of the value. Greater validation and standardisation of brand and consideration metrics - such as ad recall or brand recognition - would help properly value media that influences decision-making earlier in the journey.
Recognising these travel-specific nuances will make it easier for travel media networks to adopt the standards in a way that is transparent, comparable and commercially viable for partners across the ecosystem.”
“Scale in Commerce Media is only sustainable if it is built on a foundation of shared trust. No single platform or sector has all the answers. Cross-industry collaboration allows us to reduce fragmentation, align on standards, and create a clearer and more navigable ecosystem for advertisers.
I see real value in radical transparency: openly sharing what works, pressure-testing assumptions around measurement and being honest about the challenges of operating responsibly at scale. That includes acknowledging that many Commerce Media platforms, travel included, were not originally built with advertising from the start.
That reality makes collaboration even more important. As an industry, we are collectively building new capabilities, new operating models and new teams. At the same time, we are competing for the best talent to help professionalise and scale these media networks in the right way. Learning from adjacent sectors that are further along in their maturity curve accelerates that process significantly.
IAB Europe plays a critical role in providing a neutral ground for these conversations. By bringing industries together, it helps us move beyond experimentation toward a more transparent, trusted, and commercially mature Commerce Media ecosystem across Europe.”
If you’re operating in the travel sector, or are more broadly interested in shaping the future of Retail & Commerce Media, we’d love to hear from you. Visit our Retail Media Hub to find out more, or get in touch with the team at communication [at] iabeurope.eu.
