Our Chief Strategy Officer, Cemil Toksöz, recently took the stage at the IAB MENA Growth Series online webinar, joining fellow industry leaders Oliver Klander - RVP, MENA Brands, at LiveRamp, Sulagna Kapoor - Senior Director E-commerce Omnicom Media Group, and Aditya Deb - E-commerce Performance Marketing Manager Africa & Middle East at Beiersdorf, for an in-depth conversation on the state of Commerce and Retail Media across the region.
State of Retail Media in MENA
Retail Media is rapidly cementing itself as one of the most significant growth drivers in MENA. Grand View Research estimates the Retail Media market in the region to reach around $1.776 billion by 2030, while Statista offers a much bolder projection. According to Statista, retail platform advertising spend in the region is projected to hit US$4.27 billion in 2026, and that's just the beginning, with growth expected to continue at a CAGR of 10.38%, reaching US$6.35 billion by 2030. The UAE and KSA lead the charge as the region's largest markets.
What sets MENA apart from the rest of the world is its remarkable concentration of in-store opportunities. Yet like any fast-evolving market, it faces its share of hurdles, from data quality and the absence of unified standards to the broader need for industry-wide alignment.
For those who missed the session or are looking for a quick recap, here's a summary of the key discussions and insights from the session, covering how to tackle market challenges, tap into omnichannel approach, and help shape the future of Retail Media in this dynamic region!
Key Takeaways from IAB MENA Growth Series
The Evolution of Retail Media: From Tactical Tool to Strategic Pillar
What started as a simple visibility play, a few sponsored search listings and banner ads, has grown into a full-fledged ecosystem spanning on-site placements, off-site amplification, first-party audience monetization, and in-store opportunities. For brands, the shift has been equally profound. Retail Media has moved from being a last-mile tick-box exercise to one of the core building blocks for how brands plan commerce, media, and even brand-building activities!
Every year, another layer is added to Retail Media, making it increasingly central to how brands think about media, commerce, and consumer engagement.
The MENA region is also accelerating quickly in this space. Retailers are building stronger media capabilities, and brands are investing more seriously in connected commerce ecosystems.
- Sulagna Kapoor
Full-Funnel Thinking: The Real Game Changer
Retail Media has moved from being a tactical activity to becoming one of the building blocks of how we plan commerce, media, and brand-building activities.
For us, Retail Media is now full-funnel. We do not only use it to drive conversions. We also use retail audiences to drive awareness and consideration.
- Aditya Deb
Brands that are winning are the ones using Retail Media to address every stage of the funnel, not just conversion.
The key shift reshaping conversations with senior stakeholders is moving from targeting people who might be interested in a product to reaching people who have actually purchased it, switched from a competitor, or shopped in an adjacent category. This deterministic audience approach is what’s driving stronger confidence, clearer accountability, and ultimately unlocking budget approvals at the leadership level.
Measurement: The Most Critical Challenge
If there was one theme underpinning every discussion, it was measurement. True closed-loop measurement, definitively linking a media campaign to a sales outcome, remains the holy grail of Retail Media in MENA.
A case study shared during the session demonstrated a 102% increase in incrementality and a 50% rise in net new shoppers, driven entirely by deterministic transaction data. Numbers like that are what move budget conversations in boardrooms.
Globally, 54% of advertisers cite closed-loop measurement as their top priority, and in MENA, only a handful of retailers can currently deliver it.
For some advertisers and industries, Retail Media is already the number one channel when marketplace, e-grocery, retailer, and paid advertising investments are combined.
However, to become number one more broadly, the industry needs to solve three major challenges:
- Complexity and fragmentation
Every retailer has different formats, reports, and capabilities.
2. Measurement consistency
Brands need comparable and standardized measurement.
3. Organizational readiness
Retail Media is often not owned by one team. It is distributed across agencies, advertisers, retailers, and internal business units.
The winners will be the retailers and technology partners that simplify this complexity and create real business outcomes beyond clicks.
- Cemil Toksöz
First-Party Data: Powerful, But Not a Magic Wand
Access to retailer data alone isn't enough. Most brands realistically need only one or two strong data partnerships. The bigger issue is that many retailers have placed first-party data behind paywalls, competing directly with brands' test-and-learn budgets. A more open, collaborative approach enabled by clean room technology will ultimately benefit the entire ecosystem far more than a closed, pay-to-access model.
First-party data is paramount. The reality is that a commerce media or Retail Media network is only ever as good as the data it holds.
Some brands think that if they buy a clean room, they’ll suddenly have all the answers, be able to run campaigns across multiple audiences and cohorts, and see their results get stratospherically better. The reality is that’s not going to happen. You can buy a piece of technology, but it’s only ever as good as the data you put into it. If a retailer has a huge amount of knowledge about your products, categories, and even your competitors’ products and categories, that data should be valuable.
The next step is turning that data into something addressable, an audience that a brand can leverage for conquesting, upsell, win-back segments, new acquisition, market share growth, and category penetration.
- Oliver Klander
The Organizational Challenge in Commerce Media
Retail Media sits across multiple teams, brand marketing, trade marketing, e-commerce, digital marketing, each with different KPIs, different budget ownership, and different definitions of success.
Retail Media success requires many different teams coming together, creating a convergence of cross-functional collaboration across trade marketing, online marketing, and e-commerce. The most successful brands and businesses are the ones that embrace change, have the willingness to innovate, and actively break down barriers and silos.
- Oliver Klander
Brand marketing chases media KPIs. Trade marketing wants hard sales numbers. E-commerce focuses on conversion. And yet, Retail Media touches all of them simultaneously.
The brands that are succeeding are the ones actively breaking down these internal silos, creating shared Commerce Media teams, blending budgets into unified pools, and aligning on a single campaign objective rather than measuring performance differently at each funnel stage.
From the agency side, we also see that many large global brands still have very siloed structures. To help solve this, agencies need to align internally. The upper-funnel media team and the Retail Media team should work together and present one unified narrative to the client. When speaking to brand marketing teams, Retail Media should be part of the broader media plan.
When speaking to Retail Media, trade, or shopper teams, agencies should show how the activity connects to mid- and lower-funnel outcomes. Agencies can play an important role in breaking down silos and helping teams work in a more seamless way.
- Sulagna Kapoor
Building the Ideal Retail Media Network
True closed-loop measurement: Brands need to know definitively whether a campaign drove a sales uplift or delivered ROI.
Rich, accessible first-party data: Don't lock it in a black box. Loyalty data, search behavior, basket history, all of it should be consolidated and made actionable for brands.
Full-funnel capability and omnichannel approach: On-site, off-site, in-store, audience monetization, streaming/CTV, the whole stack.
Retail Media must evolve from inventory monetization into a fully integrated commerce media ecosystem. That means one system connecting:
- On-site
- Off-site
- In-store
- Loyalty and CRM programs
- CTV
- Customer intelligence
- Data and measurement capabilities
-Cemil Toksöz
Standardization and transparency: Brands and agencies need to be able to trust the data retailers share and compare it across networks.
Incrementality: Ultimately, a Retail Media Network should be able to attribute every sale back to a specific campaign with confidence.
The most successful retailers are those that see Retail Media as a way to strengthen:
- Customer relationships
- Supplier collaboration
- Ecosystem value
- Long-term profitability
-Cemil Toksöz
Retail Media has fundamentally changed how brands think about reaching, engaging, and converting consumers.
Brands that will lead this space are those that embrace full-funnel thinking, prioritize closed-loop measurement, invest in the right data partnerships, and break down the internal silos that have long slowed progress. The opportunity ahead is enormous.
The foundations are being laid right now, and the brands, retailers, and technology partners who move decisively will be the ones defining what Commerce & Retail Media looks like in MENA for years to come.
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