Denise Breslin has recently joined the IAB UK in the role of Commerce Media Lead. In an exclusive opinion piece for Retail Media Age, she talks about the organisation’s shift from ‘retail media’ to ‘commerce media’ and where the IAB UK is focusing next.
My first job in London was selling display advertising at New Media Age, back when the magazine was still bigger than the website. Twenty-odd years, Mobsta, and Uber later, I’ve been the new girl plenty of times, but nearly a month as the IAB’s Commerce Media Lead has still been a baptism of fire in the best way possible.
Part of that is timing. I’ve arrived just as IAB UK has repositioned ‘retail media’ to ‘commerce media’. Ask five people in this industry what commerce media is and you’ll get five answers, so my first job has been clarifying a definition all five could agree on.
For the IAB, it comes down to a transaction in the chain. Our definition describes commerce media as advertising built on transactional data: what a business knows its customers have bought, booked or paid for. It’s sold by businesses – from retailers and airlines to delivery apps and payment providers – and retail media remains its largest and most established part.
Nailing this is important. At Uber, the line between retail and commerce media ran straight through the middle of the business. Uber Eats is retail media in everything but name: Coca-Cola advertises, someone orders a Coke, and you can attribute the sale. Uber Rides is something else. The passenger has already paid, and the ads they see sit much further up the funnel.
So, how is this commerce media? While I was there, one of Uber Advertising’s big clients for rides was Audible, because the average journey is around 28 minutes and the average podcast is around 25. Ta-da, A paid ride, an ad built on what the booking tells you and a captive audience. Together, that’s commerce media.
While the transaction is the test, it isn’t always simple. Take a weather app that knows it’s about to rain on your street and wants to sell an umbrella brand a campaign for the next hour. Brilliant data, but no transaction, so arguably not commerce media. If you pay for the premium version, there’s a transaction in the chain, but the ad isn’t built on it. That’s where it gets blurry, and figuring all of this out is one of the things I’ll be doing here at the IAB.
Widening the room
A wider definition also means a wider community. Retail media is a clear label, and it has served the industry well, so changing that might not feel comfortable for everyone.
However, I feel there is so much we can all gain by widening the commerce community. Put a grocer in a room with five other grocers and everyone (reasonably) keeps their cards close to their chest. Put that same grocer in a room with a fintech, an airline and a travel data business and suddenly there’s something to learn. Digital-first players can set up a clean room without breaking a sweat, while retailers understand physical environments in a way most digital businesses never will. Where there’s difference, there’s an opportunity to learn and therefore be better. That’s the room I want to build.
Commerce media was the fastest growing area of digital advertising in the first half of this year, up 32% year on year according to IAB UK’s Digital Adspend. Growth like that brings mess with it. Every new player arrives with its own dashboard and login, and agencies – quite reasonably – hate fragmentation.
Measurement is always tricky. If you can see the ad and the sale, you have closed-loop attribution and you can report on ROAS. Many newer propositions can’t. At the moment, measurement gives advertisers signals when what they need is answers. That’s an advertising-wide problem, but it’s one we can move on.
Moving the sector forwards
Some of the bigger networks are already moving: at their Upfronts a few weeks ago, Tesco Media committed to measuring incrementality across around 93% of its spend within six months. Helping the rest of the market get there is a big focus for 2027.
Fragmentation won’t be fixed in 12 months, but we can start making solid progress. That means bringing together different parts of this diverse and multifaceted sector to establish shared definitions and common principles. These are the foundations of growth that everything else is built on and we can only carve them out by working together. We also need to be sharing campaign success stories – we all stand to do better work if we can pool that knowledge to move the sector forwards.
It’s not a small task I’m facing – it’s bloody complex and a bit of a minefield sometimes. But it’s also great fun and exactly why I took the job. What other role would put me right at the centre of the industry I love?
Further reading: Commerce media grows up: why the industry is ready to move beyond ‘retail’
