Originally published in Adweek
Key takeaways
- 56% of U.S. media buyers plan to increase commerce media spend this year, but 55% cite missing cross-network measurement standards.
- New-to-brand definitions, lookback windows, and attribution rules differ by network, so results across networks can’t be compared directly.
- Off-site commerce media is growing twice as fast as on-site, carrying purchase signal away from the retail environment that created it.
- A shared identity layer lets brands recognize the same consumer across every network, and Experian’s independence from demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply paths keeps that layer neutral.
Commerce media keeps expanding, and brands are running campaigns across more networks than ever. Most still can’t say which network performed better.
More media networks haven’t produced a more complete view
Investment keeps climbing, and 56% of U.S. media buyers plan to increase commerce media network spending this year, often by reallocating from social, display, and search budgets. Nearly half of advertisers, 47.5%, now fund those campaigns from two or three separate budgets.
Every network in that mix brings its own identity system, audience definitions, and measurement approach. Brands add the fourth or fifth network expecting a fuller picture of performance. Instead, they get more numbers that no one designed to sit next to each other.
I don’t think commerce media has a data problem. Every network has audience data and purchase data. Consistency across them is what nobody has built yet.
The inconsistency lives in the definitions
Take new-to-brand, the metric meant to separate new customers from repeat buyers. It means different things at different networks. Lookback windows differ. Some definitions apply at the brand level, others at the product line. Some count in-store purchases, others count only digital. View-through credit varies across display, video, and connected TV (CTV). Attribution windows vary by partner and by format.
Audience portability compounds it. Retailer audiences often can’t move across platforms, so teams rebuild the same strategy in several systems and hope the definitions roughly align.
Over half of advertisers, 55%, name the lack of cross-network measurement standards as a top challenge. A campaign can look stronger on one network than another for no reason other than a different reporting rule. You can’t move budget on numbers that don’t compare or show incremental lift, and yet most teams are trying to.
Off-site growth makes this harder to ignore
On-site inventory is approaching its ceiling. Sponsored results now appear on 99% of product search pages at Amazon and Walmart, and ad density has reached as high as 50% on key retail search pages. Off-site spending is growing at twice the rate of on-site.
Off-site carries commerce signal away from the environment that created it. Every handoff is a point where the audience definition, the match rate, and the measurement logic have to hold. These are solvable problems, and they show up in the same form at every handoff, which makes them worth solving once instead of campaign by campaign. Fragmentation that stayed manageable inside a retailer’s own properties becomes something to design for the moment the signal travels.
Interoperability starts with a shared identity layer
Brands and networks need a common way to recognize the same consumer wherever a campaign runs. That layer has to draw on retailer, brand, and campaign signals together, and it needs consistent definitions from one network to the next. Get that right and performance sits on common ground, even with every network’s particular reporting rules.
That layer matters more as AI takes over more of the optimization. Models inherit whatever inconsistency sits in the data beneath them, so audience definitions that shift from one network to the next degrade every decision that follows. Better models won’t fix a fragmented identity layer, but they will scale its errors faster. Networks can get ahead of this by settling the identity layer first, standardizing audience definitions so they hold on-site and off-site and give the models downstream something dependable to learn from.
Signal expansion belongs in the same conversation. First-party data reflects the customers who logged in, joined the loyalty program, or completed a transaction. Irregular buyers, emerging segments, and high-value prospects who are actively in-market show up faintly or not at all in that view, even though signal about them exists elsewhere in the ecosystem. A shared identity layer that connects to a marketplace of data providers closes part of that gap, and it does so without asking any network to hand over raw records.
This is also what opens commerce media to brands that will never own a media network. Most companies sitting on valuable first-party data don’t have the traffic or the assortment to build what Amazon and Walmart built, and they don’t need to. Combining signal with trusted partners produces audiences larger and more valuable than any one of those brands holds alone. That’s how a brand participates in commerce media without becoming a media company.
Networks need infrastructure, and neutrality decides whose
A mid-sized commerce media network runs into the same ceiling from the other direction. Owned inventory has a limit, and so does owned data. Growing past both means off-site reach, enriched audiences, and measurement that holds up next to the largest players, and building all of that in-house isn’t realistic for most networks. What they need is infrastructure that supports expansion without giving up control of the customer relationship.
That makes the choice of whose infrastructure a consequential one. Brands and networks should look hard at the commercial position of any partner they put at the center of identity and measurement. A partner with interests in a specific demand-side platform (DSP), supply path, or set of agency relationships gains visibility into every deal that moves through it, and that visibility shapes incentives over time. Networks are right to weigh it carefully.
Experian competes in none of those layers. Our position strengthens when the ecosystem stays open and brands keep the freedom to work across partners, platforms, and evolving technologies. Independence is what makes shared infrastructure possible.
Consistency is the constraint on the next round of growth
Commerce media maturity trails its ambition. 42% of teams believe they have operationalized commerce media, while only 13% qualify as advanced against leadership, technology, measurement, and operations.
Closing that gap depends on identity discipline more than network count. A brand that recognizes the same consumer across every network it buys can compare results, move budget with confidence, and hold every partner to one standard. Without that, each new network adds spend and subtracts clarity.
Consistency is what turns commerce media from a set of separate programs into something a brand can actually manage.
About the author
Kevin Dunn
Chief Revenue Officer, Experian
Kevin Dunn joins Experian Marketing Services with more than 20 years of leadership experience across marketing and advertising technology, most recently serving as Senior Vice President of Brands and Agencies at LiveRamp. In that role, he led growth across retail, CPG, travel, hospitality, financial services, and healthcare, overseeing new business, account expansion, and channel partnerships.
Kevin is known for building cohesive, accountable teams and leading with optimism, clarity, and a strong sense of shared purpose. His leadership philosophy centers on empowering people, driving positive outcomes for clients and fostering a culture where teams can grow, take smart risks, and succeed together.
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The UK digital advertising market is worth £13.44bn, an increase year-on-year of 15%, reveals the 2018 IAB UK & PwC Digital Adspend Study. Report highlights The majority of all growth is coming from smartphone advertising, which has increased by £1.65bn (35%) from 2017. Smartphone advertising now represents 51% of all UK digital ad spend, up from 45% in 2017. Video is now the largest display format (£2307m), overtaking standard display banners (£1486m). Outstream/social in-feed has increased its majority in total video spend, now occupying a share of 57%, up from 52% in 2017. Social revenue now represents 23% of all digital ad spend. Growth is predicted to slow during 2019, with 5% estimated growth (+9% digital, +11% display, +9% search) compared to 15% in 2018. 2018 marks the tipping point towards a mobile-first ecosystem “For the past few years, industry commentators have been hailing the year of mobile. Each January the predictions come and the waiting commences for evidence to mark a tipping point, a shift to a mobile-first digital ad ecosystem. Well, drumroll… it was 2018! The latest Adspend report from IAB UK and PwC reveals that spend on smartphones outstripped spend on desktop for the first time last year. Brands spent 51% of total spend (which stands at £13.44 billion) on smartphones in 2018, up from 45% in 2017 – a significant milestone in the evolution of digital advertising. “This evidence shows that advertisers are increasingly thinking mobile-first. Growth in investment has historically lagged behind the amount of time spent on the device and we expect to see growth continue at a rapid pace to keep up with audience behaviour – two thirds of time spent online is now on mobile, according to UKOM. Other areas of growth highlighted by the report include video, which accounts for 44% of the total display market, while mobile video now makes up 51% of smartphone display. This is no doubt down to bigger mobile screens, better 4G and more readily available WiFi making video ads an increasingly attractive option. “Across the board, advertisers are investing in digital for longer-term brand building as well as short-term activation, with the direct-to-consumer market helping to drive this trend. What’s more, digital continues to be an accessible and popular route to market for businesses of all sizes, from leading advertisers to SMEs.” Tim Elkington, Chief Digital Officer, IAB UK Content & context crucial for attracting audiences “As people spend more and more of their time on mobile, it’s comes as no surprise that advertisers will follow where audiences are with their marketing spend. “Video has been the driving force in this growth, indicating that engaging visual content is still key in helping brands to achieve great results and to capture consumer attention in a vast sea of digital noise. “Video still has a way to go if it is to reach the level of effectiveness of traditional formats like cinema, but it will be interesting to see how the format develops over the next year or so. Ultimately, brilliant content and properly considered context are crucial for advertisers hoping to attract relevant audiences and build strong brands long term.” Kathryn Jacob OBE, CEO, Pearl & Dean Mobile-first approach driving investment in user experience “As a mobile-first approach has become the norm for many businesses, we’ve seen significant innovation and investment in the user experience that has fuelled the rise in mobile commerce. “Yet, for some years, limitations in the technology and formats available have meant that mobile advertising couldn’t always keep pace with changing consumer behaviours – delivering weaker performance when compared to desktop. “Fortunately, mobile has made huge strides in recent years. Mobile advertising affords great targeting opportunities for brands and a more interactive and immersive experience for consumers. “There is no reason to doubt this trend will continue as advertisers design their media, creative, and targeting strategy with mobile at the heart – optimising performance, enhancing the customer experience, and delivering the best results.” James Cragg, UK Managing Director, Tug New technologies to improve investment efficiency “The UK digital ad market has continued to grow despite the various challenges that the market has faced, including the current socioeconomic climate and general changes in the industry. As spend increases, it’s important to look at how media buying can be made as efficient as possible, minimising waste and maximising the return on investment. “Marketers will start to look to new technologies, like AI, to offer an impartial and more efficient approach to media buying, allowing marketers to measure effectiveness of campaigns and allocate spend accordingly.” Carl Erik Kjaersgaard, Chief Executive, Blackwood Seven Industry going from strength to strength “This significant growth in ad spend is great to see and shows that our industry is going from strength to strength. It’s especially good to see that as advertisers invest more and more in digital advertising, they’re becoming more considered in where they’re spending their money – with a large portion of the growth coming from companies that are part of IAB’s Gold Standard. “At The Trade Desk, we’ve long been ambassadors for the importance of transparency. These findings show that it isn’t just the right thing to do, but makes good business sense as advertisers increasingly choose partners who are demonstrating a commitment to best practice.” Anna Forbes, UK General Manager, The Trade Desk Advertisers embracing mobile “As consumers spend more of their time online, it’s no surprise that digital ad spend has continued its rise, up 15% to £13.4bn. With digital, in every sense, becoming further embedded in our daily lives, it is inevitable that this number is set to rise further next year. “Given the vast majority of people using their smartphone as their primary digital device, evident from site traffic stats we see across the board, the IAB report shows that advertisers have started to fully embrace this shift by following with ad spend. Over the last few years, a combination of faster wireless connectivity along with more capable devices has made it the go-to device for consumers to get online. This is set to continue over the next few years with 5G and even faster, more capable smartphones arriving (i.e. foldables) that will further cement ‘mobile’ as the main digital device to reach consumers.” Wajid Ali, Head of Paid Search, ForwardPMX Budgets must go to professionally produced content “In the IAB’s latest ‘Digital Adspend Study’ it is positive to see that outstream continues to dominate video spend, showing close to a 10% year-on-year increase. “Unsurprisingly, the study highlights that mobile is the most important distribution device (76% of all video spend is on the smartphone), and it’s great to see the format we invented dominating that space. “However, it’s now more pertinent than ever that clients and agencies invest their outstream budgets into professionally produced content and not social infeeds. Budgets must go where content is being produced, rather than aggregators and distributors, where the content is read rather than where a click happened. “We must remember how important local, national, and vertical press are to the global digital ecosystem. By unifying the best publishers at scale, delivering mobile-optimised creativity and outcome-orientated distribution, we are fighting to ensure publishers are getting their fair share of revenue in comparison to the social platforms.” Justin Taylor, UK MD, Teads UK market in robust health “The latest IAB digital ad spend report shows encouraging signs that the UK digital advertising market is in robust health, with mobile advertising continuing its upward trend. “The rise of up-and-coming ad formats like Shopping Ads, Google’s Responsive Search Ads, and Facebook Messenger Ads show that advertisers are looking for ways to capture consumer attention in the evolving digital landscape. As a result, the lines across search, social, and e-commerce are more blurred than ever with the introduction of features like Checkout for Instagram and Shopping ads on Google Images. Furthermore, with the rapid growth of Amazon’s ads business, e-commerce has quickly emerged as a third pillar of digital advertising, making it vital for marketers to have a complete view of the customer journey across channels and devices, if they hope to more accurately understand campaign performance and attribution.” Wesley MacLaggan, SVP of Marketing, Marin Software Digital identity resolution essential in understanding customer journey “Last year’s figures show that UK ad spend is starting to mirror the behaviour of consumers who, according to UKOM data, spend two-thirds of their time online on a smartphone. The fact that mobile ad spend now surpasses that of ad spend on desktop highlights marketers’ understanding that digital identity resolution is essential, not a nice-to-have. “Appreciating the cross-device behaviours of consumers allows brands to gain a better understanding of the customer journey and build stronger relationships with their audiences long term.” Tom Rolph, VP EMEA, Tapad, a part of Experian. Contact us today