ISBA’s Digital Retail Media Study

Digital retail media is rapidly gaining traction by merging trade and marketing, leveraging customer data, purchase intent, and closed-loop attribution to drive measurable sales. With UK digital retail media projected to reach £4–5bn in 2025, scalable growth will depend on strong governance across key areas such as people, strategy, partnerships, standardization, and value.

Key takeaways

• Align commercial and marketing: Break down silos to ensure collaboration, alignment, and a unified approach to digital retail media investments. 

• Clarify investment rationale: Develop a nuanced understanding of why you’re investing in digital retail media, recognizing that motivations may vary across brands, categories, and business objectives. 

• Choose partners wisely: Be selective when working retail media partners, establishing contracts that recognize their role as media owners while also safeguarding brand interests. 

• Standardize data access: Pursue unified access to inventory and data, with flexible and customizable definitions that reflect business needs rather than rigid cross-category standardization. 

• Track KPIs effectively: Analyze campaign and sales performance across retailers to ensure delivery against targeting, impressions, reporting, and other key effectiveness measures. 

Digital retail media is growing rapidly, fuelled by its ability to use customer data, intent, and proximity to purchase to drive measurable sales through closed-loop attribution. Yet, as investment rises, scrutiny from Procurement, Finance, Audit, Compliance, and IT also increases. These questions often extend to agencies, tech partners, and retailers, making strong governance essential. Well-prepared responses build trust and unlock further spend, while weak ones risk undermining confidence.

Our study highlights five areas of governance that brands should prioritize. People are key – breaking down silos between commercial and marketing teams ensures alignment and the right expertise. Strategy requires clarity on why brands invest, whether for retailer support, defensive plays, short-term performance, or long-term brand growth. Partnerships must be chosen carefully, with contracts that reflect retailers’ role as media owners. Standardization should focus on unified access to data and customizable definitions, not rigid one-size-fits-all rules.

Finally, delivering value means moving beyond ROAS to outcome-driven KPIs and validating retailer reporting on impressions, targeting accuracy, and effectiveness. Independent audits play a vital role here. By addressing these five areas, brands can strengthen governance, reassure internal stakeholders, and set the foundation for sustainable growth in digital retail media.

Key themes from the report include: 

• The critical need for greater internal collaboration, particularly in breaking down silos between commercial and marketing teams. 

• Emerging best practices for working with external partners, including agencies. 

• The growing importance of governance across the supply chain – with a focus on cross-functional teams, clear contractual frameworks, customizable definitions, and robust validation of media delivery and value. 

View the report here.