Retail Media Report Card: 7 European Markets

Retail media ad spending in Europe is projected to continue growing more than 20% annually to reach €31 billion by 2028, according to IAB Europe. As their investments scale, brand advertisers need guidance in answering three critical questions: where can retail media strengthen core retailer relationships, where can it deliver a measurable incremental return, and where does the spend need tighter control? Mars United is here to help answer those questions. This latest edition of the Retail Media Report Card: Europe, produced in collaboration with Publicis Media UK, is a valuable tool for helping brands build an effective, business-driving investment strategy. The 1H 2026 edition includes: 📝 Analysis of 21 retail media networks that span cross-European platforms and significant players in seven key markets: UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey. ⚖️ Evaluation of 104 capabilities across five key performance areas that are essential for effective planning, execution, and measurement. 🔁 Overview of the key additions these networks made to their capabilities and offerings since the last Report Card in fall 2025. Download the report here: https://lnkd.in/eXfwthgc #RetailMediaReportCard #retailmedia #Europe

For all my network back at home 🌍 Check out the Mars United Commerce retail media report card for analysis across 21 networks in Europe. Great to see Morrisons Media Group, Boots Media Group, LS Eleven Media Services, Deliveroo Media included from my SMG days 👏

In such a fragmented ecosystem to navigate with the right companion is a must Mars United Commerce and Publicis Commerce together made this report to be updated with ongoing retail media partners as they evolve and accelerate its expansion in our market Interesting for Retail Media pros! REETMO MEDIA Salvatore Cospito Rubén Molina Ortego

The latest installment of the Retail Media Report Card for Europe has dropped! As ever this edition is filled with rich insights on what is a constantly changing landscape. Credit to the combined Publicis Commerce and Mars United team for pulling this together with Amo Aujla-Tse, Chizaram Whitney Egbuziem & Jenny Wong leading the charge!

Retail media in Europe has evolved in less than a decade from an experimental advertising channel into a core commercial lever embedded into joint business planning, distribution negotiations, and media transformation agendas for many brands. But keeping up with the constant changes and updates remains a challenge. That's where Publicis Commerce comes in. Produced as a collaborative effort between Publicis Media UK and Mars United Commerce, the latest edition of the Retail Media Report Card: Europe provides a valuable resource to help brands evaluate the landscape of potential retail media partners. Among the features of the 1H 2026 edition: 📝 Analysis of 21 retail media networks that span cross-European platforms and significant players in seven key markets: UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey. ⚖️ Evaluation of 104 capabilities across five key performance areas that are essential for effective planning, execution, and measurement. 🔁 Roundup of the key additions that networks made to their capabilities and offerings since the last Report Card in fall 2025. Download the report here: https://lnkd.in/eXfwthgc #RetailMediaReportCard #Europe #retailmedia

An important read. The IAB UK Gold Standard has a key role to play in helping Retail Media grow on the basis of credible, comparable measurement, supported by ABC’s independent audit.

As investment in retail media grows, so do the questions around consistency, transparency and trust. We spoke with Olivia McCullagh at IAB UK about: • Why Retail Media is now part of the Gold Standard • The role of independent auditing • What advertisers and agencies need from Retail Media Networks next • How shared standards will help the market scale An important conversation for anyone working across retail media, measurement or digital advertising. Full interview below 👇 #trustinmedia #retailmedia #iabuk

A few days ago, in a room full of people who have spent the last three years telling each other that retail media is booming, the IAB Connected Commerce Summit in New York delivered a different message: not a pessimistic one but a grown-up one. Collin Colburn, IAB's VP of Commerce, compared the category to day two of potty training: past the breakthrough moment, into the part where discipline matters more than excitement. The room laughed; then it got quiet, because everyone in it knew exactly what he meant. Hundreds of retail media networks have been built on the same logic, the same inventory, the same pitch deck. And now the IAB is saying out loud what brands have been thinking privately for two years: there is too much sameness. The next wave of growth will not come from launching another network; it will come from differentiation, from proving real incremental impact, from connecting commerce media to actual business outcomes rather than dashboards that report what everyone wants to hear. This matters beyond New York: in LATAM, we are building retail media infrastructure right now, in this window, with these choices in front of us. The temptation is to copy what worked in the US two or three years ago. But what the IAB is telling the US market in 2026 is that the US model already has too many copies of itself. We do not need to import that problem. We have an opportunity to build something differentiated from the start, with measurement that earns trust rather than inflating it, and with a genuine loop between commerce data and media investment. The window is not permanent. The hard choices are the same everywhere. #RetailMedia #CommerceMedia #LATAM #AdTech #RetailIQ

Retailers don’t win in-store media by perfectly following standards. They win by proving something works. There’s a lot of focus right now on in-store measurement standards from industry groups like IAB. That’s fine. We think they're doing a pretty good job helping the industry mature. But here’s the problem: Standards optimize for comparability but they don’t guarantee performance. If you build your network to check every box: - standardized impressions - aligned definitions - consistent reporting You might become easier to compare but not necessarily better. In-store media is still early. The networks that will win are the ones that figure out: - what actually drives sales in their stores - how to execute it consistently - how to prove it simply Even if it looks a little different from everyone else. Call it weird. That’s fine because ad buyers don’t reward you for being standard. They reward you for delivering results they trust. Standards will catch up to what works. Not the other way around. So yes, understand the frameworks but don’t let them define your approach. In this phase, being effective matters more than being comparable. #RetailMedia #RMN #InStoreMedia #CommerceMedia #MeridianRetailMedia