Retail media is growing fast. Standards are not

The numbers tell a compelling story. The market is already estimated to be between R9bn and R12bn. Ecommerce is projected to exceed R130bn in 2026. Retailers collectively manage more than 60 million loyalty memberships, giving brands access to some of the richest first party data in the country.

The opportunity is real. The challenge is confidence. Retail media does not have an inventory problem. In most cases, it does not have an audience problem either, but trust is holding back bigger investments.

As retail media grows, advertisers are asking tougher questions about what success really looks like and demanding the evidence behind it. The issue is that different retailer networks use different attribution windows. Different reporting methodologies. Different definitions of success.Everyone shares some form of performance data, but not everyone is speaking the same language. This matters now because retail media is entering a new phase.

The question is no longer whether retail media drives visibility and sales, but whether the industry can prove its value consistently enough to earn bigger budgets and long-term investment.

The ROAS trap

For years, return on ad spend (ROAS), has been the headline metric for media. ROAS is simple and easy to explain. It gives marketers a clear view of efficiency. But efficiency is not the same thing as growth.

A campaign can generate a strong ROAS while reaching shoppers who were already planning to buy. Sales can be attributed to media activity without proving that media created additional demand. That distinction becomes increasingly important as retail media matures.

Brands are not just asking whether a campaign delivered revenue. They are asking:

• Did we acquire new customers?
  
• Did we generate incremental sales?
  
• Did we increase market share?
  
• Did we grow customer value over time?

Those are business questions to answer, not standard reporting questions. Answering them requires a measurement framework that defines measurement beyond efficiency metrics, but provide a clear view of commercial growth.

The real challenge facing South African retail media

Here is where the challenge now sits. South African now has multiple retail media networks, highlighted in the 2026 MMA Ecoscape Report, where each network is running its own version of 'last mile advertising'. Multiply that across a growing number of networks and you get measurement inconsistency by design, not by accident.

It gets harder from there, as not every marketing discipline is being measured against the strategic business objective it is meant to serve. Trade marketing is a clear example. Where it remains one of the largest areas of investment, yet many brands still struggle to connect the investment to commercially meaningful outcomes. If an established marketing discipline is not being held to a growth standard, the gap just widens with retail media.

Under both sits an operating model problem and it starts with a question that the industry has not settled; who owns retail media?

In some organisations, retail media sits within shopper marketing. In others, it belongs to marketing, sales, or commerce teams. Each function is measured differently. Marketing focuses on brand and consumer outcomes. Sales focuses on volume and trade performance. Without a shared framework for measurement, businesses often struggle to create a single view of what tactics are driving growth.

This statement is supported by the MMA report, which identifies inconsistent measurement, lack of standardisation, advertiser confusion, and capability fragmentation within organisations as some of the biggest barriers to future growth.

None of these challenges are unique to South Africa, where this represents the phase of maturity as every retail media market goes through this stage before getting to the next. Then the industry reaches a point where advertisers start asking harder questions:

• How do we compare performance across networks?
  
• What does good look like?
  
• Which metrics matter most?
  
• Can we trust the results?

Retail media is growing faster than the standards needed to support it. This is a clear sign the industry is moving in its maturity.

Trust needs standards

The next phase of retail media growth will not be driven by more inventory. It will be driven by greater confidence in outcomes. Confidence comes from standardisation because everyone needs to work from the same definitions. The industry needs a common language. Without it, comparison becomes difficult. Without comparison, trust becomes difficult, and without trust, growth slows.

Moving beyond attribution

As retail media evolves, measurement needs to evolve too. Besides ROAS, the advertisers also need to understand:

• Acquisition Are brands reaching genuinely new customers?
  
• Incrementality Would those sales have happened anyway?
  
• Customer value What is the long-term contribution of acquired customers?
  
• Business impact Is retail media creating meaningful commercial growth?

These measures provide a more complete view of effectiveness and move the conversation from attribution to accountability.

Building the foundations

The encouraging part is that the industry is not waiting for someone else to solve the problem. Through the MMA South Africa Retail Media Task Force, retailers, brands, technology partners, and other stakeholders are working together to improve retail media education and establish greater measurement consistency across the market.

One of the Task Force's core priorities is the development of retail media measurement standards under the guidance of global retail media measurement specialist Jeffrey Bustos. Dentsu Merkle and dentsu SSA are proud participants in this important work. Dentsu are active contributors to this piece of work because agencies sit at the intersection of retailer, advertiser and customer needs who serves as the connective tissue in the industry.

We see the pressure clients face to justify investment decisions. We see the challenges in comparing results across platforms. We see where measurement creates confidence and where it creates uncertainty. The goal is to create shared standards that make retail media easier to understand, easier to compare and easier to trust. Because trust drives investment, and investment drives growth.

The opportunity ahead

South Africa has something many mature retail media markets do not: time. Many are trying to retrofit standards after years of rapid growth. South Africa now has an opportunity to build stronger foundations while the category industry is shaping.

The next stage of growth for retail media in South Africa depends on creating a measurement framework that gives advertisers the ability to clearly demonstrate commercial impact. Dentsu designs measurement frameworks that capture, report, and interpret performance data to prove business success.

Contact moc.ustned@syubnothgiel.asna for a brainstorm on your measurement maturity, or for a comprehensive framework to track your marketing investment performance.