IAB Europe this week published the second instalment of its Bitesize Guide to Change Management in Retail Media series, laying out in precise terms the strategic, operational, and cultural demands that retailers face as the channel expands beyond on-site placements into off-site programmatic and physical in-store environments. The guide, released on April 15, 2026, was authored under the supervision of Lauren Wakefield and draws on contributions from senior industry figures across WPP Media, OBI First Media Group, and IAB Italy.

The release arrives at a moment when European retail media has grown into a substantial segment of the advertising economy. According to IAB Europe data published in October 2025, European retail media spending reached €13.7 billion in 2024, representing 21.1% growth, with projections pointing toward €28.8 billion by 2028. The sector now accounts for roughly one-fifth of total digital advertising expenditure across European markets - a scale that makes the operational question of how to actually build and run a retail media network far more consequential than it was when the category was nascent.

Three layers of transformation

According to the guide, change in retail media operates across three distinct dimensions: strategic, operational, and cultural. Each carries its own set of demands, and progress on one dimension without the others tends to stall.

On the strategic side, the guide describes a fundamental repositioning of retail media within commercial organisations. According to the document, "Retail Media has moved from a trade-driven add-on to a strategic growth engine." Monetisation now spans on-site formats such as sponsored products, display, and video; off-site environments including programmatic display, video, connected television, social, and audio; and in-store channels encompassing digital screens, connected shopping, audio, experiential formats, and out-of-home. That breadth places new demands on commercial strategy. A retailer that launched a retail media offering primarily through sponsored search placements on its own website now faces pressure to maintain and price inventory across a far wider set of environments.

First-party data sits at the centre of this strategic shift. According to the guide, as third-party identifiers decline, data becomes an enterprise asset. Retailers are consequently investing in customer data platforms (CDPs) and data clean rooms (DCRs), while building secure collaboration frameworks that allow brands to access audience insights without exposing raw consumer records. Partnerships with demand-side platforms, agencies, and retail media network enablers are expanding the reach of these programmes. This mirrors broader infrastructure developments documented across the industry, including the launch of a data clean room by NIQ on Snowflake in October 2025 that targeted exactly the kind of closed-loop measurement retailers now require.

The operational demands are considerable

The guide's second section addresses the technology, process, and talent requirements involved in delivering omnichannel retail media. The list of required technology upgrades is specific: CDPs and DCRs, personalisation engines, analytics and attribution platforms, retail-specific ad servers, and in-store digital networks integrated with data and content systems. None of these components is trivial to deploy. Retail-specific ad servers, for instance, differ from generic programmatic infrastructure because they must reconcile inventory with product catalogue data, manage frequency against shopper identity rather than cookie-based identifiers, and produce closed-loop attribution reports tied to actual basket data.

Process redesign is described in the guide as essential. According to the document, retail media demands shared KPIs, cross-functional governance, and streamlined workflows to ensure consistency and scalability, requiring the breaking down of silos across merchandising, CRM, IT, finance, and store operations. This is a structural challenge that technology alone cannot resolve. A retailer operating with separate teams for trade promotions, digital marketing, and store operations - each with different management chains and performance metrics - will find it difficult to build a coherent retail media proposition regardless of how sophisticated its ad tech stack becomes.

Talent gaps, according to the guide, remain a major barrier. Retailers need hybrid expertise across digital advertising, data analytics, product management, retail operations, and privacy. The combination is rare. Someone with deep retail operations knowledge is unlikely to have programmatic trading experience, while an ad tech specialist may have little understanding of how in-store promotional mechanics work or how joint business plan commitments between brands and retailers shape investment decisions. According to the document, upskilling, recruitment, and external support accelerate capability building - though external support carries its own integration costs.

The scale of this talent challenge is supported by research from across the industry. A December 2025 IAB Ireland reportfound that creating and investing in specialist skills remains essential, noting that brands and agencies require specialists understanding the nuances of sponsored products, off-site advertising, and first-party data, as well as how each network operates. The Irish findings reflect a gap that is by no means unique to that market.

Cultural transformation, not just technical deployment

The guide's third section addresses mindset and leadership, and it makes a point that does not always receive adequate attention in discussions of retail media development: the transformation is as much cultural as it is technical. According to the document, "Retailers must shift from a product-centric, trade-focused mindset to one that treats advertisers as customers and media performance as a measurable business outcome."

That shift has practical implications. A trade team accustomed to managing promotional terms with suppliers - where the relationship is fundamentally one of buying power and shelf space allocation - needs to operate quite differently when the same suppliers become advertising clients. Media performance must be demonstrated, reported, and optimised. Advertisers expect transparency on delivery, viewability, and attribution. The commercial conversation changes character entirely.

Leadership is described as critical in this process, with successful organisations fostering transparency and cross-team collaboration, data-driven decision-making, and experimentation with test-and-learn behaviours. According to the guide, as AI accelerates automation and optimisation, organisational agility becomes non-negotiable. Continuous learning, rapid iteration, and collaborative innovation are described as foundational to competitive advantage. The role of AI in this context is not to replace human judgement but to accelerate the cycle between hypothesis and result - which only works if the organisation has built processes capable of acting on those results quickly.

Readiness audits: seven dimensions

The guide's most practically detailed section concerns how organisations can assess their current capabilities before scaling. It identifies seven dimensions of readiness that should be audited: commercial, technology, data, process, talent, measurement, and infrastructure.

Commercial readiness covers clarity of monetisation strategy, pricing, value proposition, and yield management. Technology readiness examines the suitability of the current stack for ad delivery, measurement, personalisation, and in-store activation. Data readiness evaluates the quality, accessibility, and governance of first-party data, including clean room and CDP maturity. Process readiness looks at cross-functional workflows, governance, service level agreements, and campaign operations. Talent readiness assesses the availability of ad-tech, analytics, product, and retail media expertise. Measurement readiness considers the ability to deliver closed-loop reporting, meet industry measurement standards, and perform incrementality and unified attribution. Finally, infrastructure readiness requires developing robust business cases for build, buy, or lease options for dedicated retail media inventory, including in-store digital screens where applicable.

According to the guide, these audits provide a baseline for prioritising quick wins versus long-term transformation. The framing acknowledges that not every retailer needs to address all seven dimensions simultaneously. A retailer with strong first-party data governance but limited ad-tech infrastructure will face a different sequence of investments than one with sophisticated technology already in place but fragmented data assets.

This assessment framework connects directly to the standardisation context IAB Europe has been building over time. The updated pan-European retail media definitions published in March 2025 established common terminology for on-site, off-site, and in-store categories. The certification programme, under which Albert Heijn became the first certified retail media network in September 2025, created an external benchmark against which networks can validate their measurement practices. The readiness audit framework in the new guide occupies a different but complementary space: it is internal, self-directed, and focused on organisational capability rather than external accreditation.

Barriers and enablers: predictable friction

The guide identifies barriers and enablers that recur across retail media transformation efforts. The barriers include siloed teams and conflicting KPIs, legacy systems not built for advertising, limited data governance or fragmented data assets, talent shortages in ad-tech and analytics, and slow decision-making or unclear ownership. The enablers include executive sponsorship and a clear retail media vision, enterprise-wide data strategy and governance, cross-functional operating models with shared KPIs, investment in scalable and interoperable technology, and training programmes that build literacy across commercial, marketing, CRM, and operations.

The emphasis on executive sponsorship is significant. Retail media transformation requires decisions about technology investment, organisational restructuring, and commercial strategy that sit well above the level of a digital marketing team. Without visible commitment from leadership, cross-functional alignment tends to dissolve under the pressure of competing departmental priorities.

The IAB Europe Attitudes to Retail Media Report published in July 2025 found that 58% of retailers now operate separate retail media sales teams, compared to 36% the previous year - a structural shift that reflects exactly the kind of operational separation the guide advocates. That same research found 70% of buyers citing lack of retail media standards as investment barriers, underlining why the work IAB Europe is doing to establish common frameworks matters to the buy side as well as retailers building out supply.

A four-stage maturity model

The guide concludes with a maturity model spanning four stages. At the Foundational level, organisations have limited monetisation with basic on-site formats, manual processes, siloed teams, minimal measurement, and limited data activation. Moving to the Developing stage, formats expand across on-site and off-site, early data collaboration emerges, basic audience segmentation becomes possible, and cross-functional workflows begin to take shape. The Advanced stage brings omnichannel monetisation including in-store, scalable data collaboration, clean rooms and unified profiles, automated workflows, consistent measurement, and strong governance. The Leading stage describes a fully integrated retail media ecosystem with AI-driven optimisation, predictive insights, dynamic personalisation, mature commercial strategy, diversified revenue streams, enterprise-wide adoption, and a separate P&L or legal entity to ensure autarky and incrementality.

That final detail - the separate P&L - is notable. It reflects an understanding that a retail media operation embedded within a broader commercial structure will inevitably face resource allocation conflicts and will struggle to demonstrate true incrementality unless its financials are reported independently. The shift to a separate entity is a governance decision as much as a financial one.

Research from a November 2025 Forrester study commissioned by Koddi found that while 42% of respondents described their commerce media operations as operationalized or advanced, only 13% met the criteria for trailblazers across strategy, technology, measurement, and operations - a gap that maps directly onto the lower stages of the IAB Europe maturity model. Nearly half of respondents fell into the nascent category, running pilots or informal sponsorships without consistent frameworks.

Why this matters for the marketing community

For brands and agencies allocating budgets to retail media, the guide provides a useful framework for evaluating the readiness of the networks they are investing in. A retailer at the Foundational stage will provide very different reporting capabilities, audience segmentation depth, and campaign management tooling than one at the Advanced or Leading stage. Understanding where a network sits on that maturity curve - and which of the seven readiness dimensions it has addressed - helps advertisers set realistic expectations and make more informed decisions about where to commit budget.

IAB Europe's best practice guides published in July 2025 found that while 88% of buyers require ROAS data, only 71% of retail media networks currently provide this measurement consistently - a gap that reflects the technology and process immaturity described in the new guide. The readiness audit dimensions around measurement and data directly explain why that gap exists and what retailers need to do to close it.

The guide was produced with contributions from Jason Wescott, Global Head of Commerce Solutions at WPP Media and chair of IAB Europe's Retail & Commerce Media Committee; Patricia Grudmann, Vice President Media & Retail Media and Managing Director at OBI First Media Group and vice-chair of the same committee; and Giordano Buttazzo, from IAB Italy's members and business development team. Contact for the guide at IAB Europe is Marie-Clare Puffett, Industry Development & Insights Director, at [email protected]. IAB Europe is headquartered at Rond-Point Robert Schumanplein 11, 1040 Brussels, Belgium.

Timeline

Summary

Who: IAB Europe's Retail & Commerce Media Committee, with contributions from Jason Wescott (WPP Media), Patricia Grudmann (OBI First Media Group), and Giordano Buttazzo (IAB Italy), authored and published the guide. Lauren Wakefield is credited as the author on the IAB Europe website.

What: The second instalment of IAB Europe's Bitesize Guide to Change Management in Retail Media series, covering strategic shifts in monetisation and data, operational requirements around technology, processes and talent, cultural transformation demands, a seven-dimension readiness audit framework, a barriers and enablers analysis, and a four-stage maturity model ranging from Foundational to Leading.

When: Published on April 15, 2026, building on Part One of the series which covered the foundations of retail media change management.

Where: IAB Europe, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, published the guide for distribution across its European member network. The guide addresses retail media organisations operating across on-site, off-site, and in-store environments in European and international markets.

Why: European retail media has grown to €13.7 billion in annual spending as of 2024, representing 21.1% growth and roughly one-fifth of total digital advertising expenditure. Despite this scale, research consistently shows maturity gaps between strategic ambition and operational capability - with only 13% of commerce media operators qualifying as trailblazers in independent research. The guide is designed to give retail media leaders a structured framework for identifying where their organisations stand and what specific changes are required to build scalable, measurable retail media capabilities.

Share this article
The link has been copied!