ROAS SPECIAL EP5: Albertson's iROAS retail media measurement secrets

Albertson's Media Collective iROAS Measurement Secrets

How much can the methodology behind iROAS change the story your retail media data tells?

In this episode of Retail Media Therapy, Viv Craske takes a deep dive into iROAS measurement, exploring research from Albertsons Media Collective and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. The study examined 42 digital advertising campaigns and compared different approaches to measuring incremental return on ad spend.

The results reveal just how much methodology matters. Across the campaigns, the difference between the highest and lowest reported ROAS was 6.5x. Even more strikingly, 83% of campaigns flipped from a positive to a negative incremental return depending solely on the measurement methodology used.

Viv breaks down three key approaches to iROAS measurement:

Pre/post analysis – simple and accessible, but unable to fully separate advertising impact from other factors influencing sales. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) – widely regarded as the gold standard for incrementality measurement, but more difficult to implement, particularly for omnichannel retailers. Synthetic controls – a middle ground that uses comparable unexposed audiences or markets to estimate what would have happened without advertising.

The episode also explores how audience definitions and revenue calculations can dramatically change reported iROAS. For example, focusing specifically on previous brand buyers reduced one reported result from $2.27 to just $0.22.

So what should advertisers do? The key takeaway is transparency. Before comparing iROAS figures, advertisers need to understand how the result was calculated, how test and control groups were constructed, what assumptions influenced the model, and how incremental revenue was determined. And Retail Media Networks need to be transparent about how they are measuring their online media results.

Because without understanding the methodology, two iROAS numbers may not actually be measuring the same thing. Grace & Co | Retail Media Experts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.