IAB’s Collin Colburn: Creators and Retail Media Need to Realize How They’re ‘Complementary’
Commerce media is at a definitional fork in the road. One path leads toward a world where commerce signals inform all forms of advertising. The other keeps it as a distinct vertical defined by first-party data, proximity to consumer experiences, and owned surfaces to monetize against. The IAB’s Collin Colburn thinks both definitions are valid — and that the tension between them is shaping the industry’s next moves.
“Commerce media really has fluctuating definitions today. The fork in the road is do we go towards more of this everything-becomes-commerce-driven media, or is it really just this special vertical within the advertising ecosystem?” Collin Colburn, vp of Commerce and Retail Media at IAB, told Beet.TV editorial director Lisa Granatstein at IAB Playfronts. “Both of those definitions are actually fine.”
What’s less fine, in Colburn’s view, is the fragmentation that has accumulated as the ecosystem expanded in every direction at once.
Creators and retail media fill each other’s gaps
The convergence of creator marketing and retail media is one of the more structurally interesting developments Colburn sees emerging from IAB’s Playfronts week. Each solves a problem the other has struggled with.
“Creators are really great at driving discovery and influence. Retail media is a little bit better at being able to show purchase and connect that to media exposure,” Colburn said. “Creators have had a little bit of trouble being able to connect to purchase and business outcomes, and retail media networks have struggled a little bit with upper-funnel offerings.”
The potential value exchange is real, and IAB is actively working on it.
Incrementality gains, attribution loses ground
Signal loss across the consumer journey — as more of it gets absorbed into LLM-powered AI experiences — is accelerating a shift that was already underway. Attribution promised causal proof and delivered correlation. Incrementality is making good on that original promise.
“Incrementality is actually able to parse out some of that noise and just look at did media cause people to buy the item? You’re able to look at things like having exposed groups versus groups that are not exposed to be able to really figure out in a causal way whether or not the media drove the business outcome,” Colburn said. “Attribution has just had some challenges being able to fully show that.”
AI and standardization as fragmentation fixes
With more than 100 retail media networks now operating across onsite, offsite, and in-store environments, the buying process has become unwieldy for agencies working across multiple networks simultaneously. Colburn sees two paths toward greater consistency.
“AI really presents an opportunity to be able to connect a very fragmented ecosystem in a way that’s going to make it easier for buyers to buy effectively and efficiently,” Colburn said. “We also need to have greater alignment and potentially standardization of ad formats because there is a wide variety of different ad formats that exist across these hundred-plus retail media networks.”
In-store is adding to the complexity as CVS, Albertsons, and Dollar General expand their advertising footprints inside physical locations. Managing the combination of onsite, offsite, and in-store without clearer standards will remain the industry’s central operational challenge.
“It’s something that we as an industry are just going to have to balance,” Colburn said.
Commerce media is at a definitional fork in the road. One path leads toward a world where commerce signals inform all forms of advertising. The other keeps it as a distinct vertical defined by first-party data, proximity to consumer experiences, and owned surfaces to monetize against. The IAB’s Collin Colburn thinks both definitions are valid — and that the tension between them is shaping the industry’s next moves.
“Commerce media really has fluctuating definitions today. The fork in the road is do we go towards more of this everything-becomes-commerce-driven media, or is it really just this special vertical within the advertising ecosystem?” Collin Colburn, vp of Commerce and Retail Media at IAB, told Beet.TV editorial director Lisa Granatstein at IAB Playfronts. “Both of those definitions are actually fine.”
What’s less fine, in Colburn’s view, is the fragmentation that has accumulated as the ecosystem expanded in every direction at once.
Creators and retail media fill each other’s gaps
The convergence of creator marketing and retail media is one of the more structurally interesting developments Colburn sees emerging from IAB’s Playfronts week. Each solves a problem the other has struggled with.
“Creators are really great at driving discovery and influence. Retail media is a little bit better at being able to show purchase and connect that to media exposure,” Colburn said. “Creators have had a little bit of trouble being able to connect to purchase and business outcomes, and retail media networks have struggled a little bit with upper-funnel offerings.”
The potential value exchange is real, and IAB is actively working on it.
Incrementality gains, attribution loses ground
Signal loss across the consumer journey — as more of it gets absorbed into LLM-powered AI experiences — is accelerating a shift that was already underway. Attribution promised causal proof and delivered correlation. Incrementality is making good on that original promise.
“Incrementality is actually able to parse out some of that noise and just look at did media cause people to buy the item? You’re able to look at things like having exposed groups versus groups that are not exposed to be able to really figure out in a causal way whether or not the media drove the business outcome,” Colburn said. “Attribution has just had some challenges being able to fully show that.”
AI and standardization as fragmentation fixes
With more than 100 retail media networks now operating across onsite, offsite, and in-store environments, the buying process has become unwieldy for agencies working across multiple networks simultaneously. Colburn sees two paths toward greater consistency.
“AI really presents an opportunity to be able to connect a very fragmented ecosystem in a way that’s going to make it easier for buyers to buy effectively and efficiently,” Colburn said. “We also need to have greater alignment and potentially standardization of ad formats because there is a wide variety of different ad formats that exist across these hundred-plus retail media networks.”
In-store is adding to the complexity as CVS, Albertsons, and Dollar General expand their advertising footprints inside physical locations. Managing the combination of onsite, offsite, and in-store without clearer standards will remain the industry’s central operational challenge.
“It’s something that we as an industry are just going to have to balance,” Colburn said.
