What: In-store retail media must prove sales impact, not just reach, if retailers want to attract brand budgets that remain over 99% online in Europe despite 95% of food and beverage spending happening in stores. 

Why it is important: Department stores that combine store, till and loyalty data, as John Lewis already does to link ad exposure to in-store purchases, can turn in-store media from a reach product into an outcome product brands will pay for.

IAB Europe has opened a consultation on in-store commerce media measurement. Its proposal divides the store into five zones, from outside the front door to the aisle, and calculates "opportunity to see" from six inputs: footfall, store count, campaign duration, number of placements, aisle penetration and share of voice. It also covers impressions in stores without sensors, which remain the majority.

A shared language would let brands compare screens across retailers such as Tesco and Carrefour. This matters for a channel whose investment has plateaued: IAB Australia found 73% of the industry cites measurement as its top challenge.

In Europe, 95% of food and beverage spending happens in stores, yet more than 99% of retail media spend stays online, because brands invest where they can prove effect. "Opportunity to see" estimates who walked past an ad without showing whether anything sold. Albertsons introduced an in-store incrementality framework this year, using close to 60 variables to match test and control stores.

Each zone should carry its own creative, KPIs and pricing. Retail media networks should report incrementality as standard, measure shelf availability and compliance alongside impressions, and publish their methodology to build trust.

IADS Notes: The measurement gap addressed by IAB Europe's proposal was already identified as retail media's central test when advertisers began treating the channel as core rather than experimental, raising their performance expectations while most networks scored poorly on advertiser satisfaction (Bain & Company, December 2023). Selling formats and activations in isolation has since been shown to cost networks brand budgets, with coordinated onsite, offsite and in-store planning backed by robust measurement presented as the condition for capturing a larger share (Internet Retailing, June 2026). John Lewis illustrates both the inventory and the proof sides of the equation for department stores: a premium in-store media proposition built into its store revamp (Retail Week, November 2025), followed by ROPO measurement linking online ad exposure to in-store purchases through loyalty data (Retail Times, June 2026). In Australia, The Iconic, Myer and David Jones face the same test as they challenge supermarket networks, needing to prove that a less frequent, discovery-led fashion journey can deliver measurable value to advertisers (Inside Retail, July 2026). The rapid spread of in-store screens carries its own risk: placements in dwell zones can serve shoppers, while those interrupting product selection turn into visual noise, a distinction that anticipates the zone-based logic now formalised by IAB Europe (The Robin Report, August 2026).

Why in-store retail media needs to prove what it sells