Christmas has come early in the retail media world!
The IAB and IAB Europe’s newly released Guidelines for Incremental Measurement in Commerce Media offer a much-needed standardized framework to help marketers prove the true causal business impact of commerce media investments as spending grows toward $100 billion by 2028.
Developed collaboratively with industry stakeholders and our very own Dr. Ram Singh & Alex Gibbs these guidelines clarify the difference between incrementality and attribution, emphasizing that incrementality measures the additional outcomes directly caused by marketing versus what would have happened without it.
The framework categorizes four key measurement approaches—experiment-based tests (e.g., randomized control trials), model-based counterfactuals, econometric models, and hybrid proxies—each evaluated for causal rigor, resource requirements, and suitability for different business decisions. High-stakes strategic decisions require methods with strong causal foundations, while faster tactical optimizations may rely on lighter proxies if limitations are understood.
The guidelines also stress incrementality as an ongoing measurement process to track changes over time, rather than a one-time test.
For marketers and commerce media practitioners, adopting these guidelines means gaining a unified, credible approach to prove incremental lift, better allocate budgets, and communicate marketing effectiveness with confidence to stakeholders.
At Horizon Commerce, such principles guide the development of our AI-powered forecasting and optimization platform to ensure robust, transparent measures of media’s real impact on growth, helping brands move beyond raw outcomes to actionable growth insights.
Why It Matters for Brands and Platforms
This framework shifts commerce media from inflated ROAS to credible framework, enabling smarter spend shifts from search to onsite display or CTV. Incrementality becomes continuous—not one-off tests—to track method evolution and media mix changes.
Check out the guidelines here: https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/IAB_and_IAB_Europe_Guidelines_Incremental_Measurement_Commerce_Media_November_2025.pdf