Retail Media Networks - demonstrate your commitment to industry standards with our Retail Media audits
As an IAB Europe Retail Media Certification auditor and the official IAB UK Gold auditor, we're uniquely positioned to independently assess global compliance.
How can I prove the effectiveness of Retail Media?
In 2023, Retail Media grew 4 times faster than the total ad market, and in Europe it's forecast to be worth €31 billion by 2028.
Despite its huge potential as a powerful advertising channel, Retail Media is facing challenges like measurement accuracy, transparency and standardisation.
These issues can hinder trust and discourage investment from advertisers
Build buyer trust with our Retail Media audit
By completing an audit to either IAB Europe Retail Media Standards, and/or the IAB UK Gold Standard, you can demonstrate your commitment to transparency.
These certifications ensure buyers can trust the data they’re seeing, as you’ll be consistently measuring key metrics compliantly.
Retail Media audits promote standardisation across the market, making it easier for buyers to confidently place investment with you.
Complete one audit, get two certifications!
As we’re the only official auditor for the IAB UK Gold Standard, we’re uniquely positioned to offer audits for both this and the IAB Europe Retail Media Certification Programme.
In other words, with one audit from ABC, you can be certified for both!
IAB Europe
Our audit will prove your compliance to the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards.
The standards cover online measurement, are applicable to both on and off-site platforms and cover the following areas:
- Primary Media Metrics
(including viewability, IVT) to ensure digital retail media ads adhere to the same standards as other digital ads - Attribution Metrics
to ensure that brands can compare their advertising investments using a standard lookback window and ROAS definition - Additional Retail Media Insights
to further elevate the unique insights that retail media networks can provide such as ‘New to Brand’
The audit process will employ a combination of techniques including process reviews, technical analysis and sample testing.
IAB UK Gold Standard
Our audit will prove your compliance to the IAB UK Gold Standard.
Gold Standard Certification for Retail Media Networks covers a subset of the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards.
The Gold Standard requirements cover On Site channels (Ads delivered on digital inventory on sites owned and operated by retailers and their selling partners), which can be a website or an app (or both).
For a Retail Media Network to become Gold Standard Certified the following metrics are subject to an ABC audit:
- Ad impressions
- Clicks/ click throughs
- Viewability
- Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT)
The audit process will employ a combination of techniques including process reviews, technical analysis and sample testing.
About ABC
As an industry owned organisation, our core mission is to build and maintain trust. Known by both buyers and sellers, we provide services that facilitate advertising transactions and assure adherence to global standards. Our long-standing reputation for reliability and independence, rooted in the ABC brand, makes us a great trusted partner for you.
We offer two primary services:
- Data-Driven Trust
Since 1931, we've provided consistently defined and audited data that buyers and sellers can rely on. - Assurance Services
For over two decades, we've applied our audit expertise to many industry initiatives, including digital advertising, data privacy, and TV. Now we're introducing the same for retail media.
Our tripartite structure of Advertisers, Agencies and Media Owners, with equal representation from the buy and sell sides of our industry, ensures our independence. And, as a non-profit distributing organisation, we focus solely on delivering impartial and trusted data and assurance services.
Why get independently audited?
Conducting our independent Retail Media audit offers numerous benefits:
- Increases trust with brands, agencies, and other industry stakeholders
- Creates a level playing field
- Ensures fair competition
- Fosters confidence in the reliability of measurement outcomes
- Showcases leadership in the Retail Media space
The fact that we’re bringing retail media into the Gold Standard for the first time shows how the sector is maturing to embrace shared frameworks and definitions. We’re very pleased to have appointed ABC as the official auditor of the retail media pillar in the Gold Standard and I’m confident that our retail media members will be in good hands throughout that process.
Patrick Hann
By setting rigorous standards and working with independent auditors, we are enabling retailers to showcase their commitment to best practices and industry leadership. This programme is not just about certification; it's about elevating the entire Retail Media landscape.
