IAB Europe published a first draft addendum to its Commerce (incl. Retail) Media Measurement Standards on September 17, built specifically for travel media networks. The working group behind it names Booking.com, Kayak, Expedia, Skyscanner, Koddi and Sojern; the draft PDF also lists Marriott Media, though the public release doesn’t. The addendum’s central change is how a sale gets counted: Gross Bookings, recognised at the point of booking, before any cancellation, rather than Net Bookings. IAB Europe is taking comments on the nine-page draft through October 23.
What does the IAB Europe travel media draft count as a sale?
The draft addendum states: “Sales reporting for Travel Media is standardised on Gross Bookings (i.e. recognised at the point of booking, prior to cancellation) rather than Net Bookings.” A booking counts as a sale the moment it’s made, regardless of whether the traveler cancels afterward. The draft doesn’t ask travel media networks to report a net or cancellation-adjusted figure alongside that gross number.
A Retail Standard, Rerouted for Travel
The addendum builds on IAB Europe’s existing Commerce (incl. Retail) Media Measurement Standards V2.1 and its Guidelines for Incremental Measurement in Commerce Media. Most of that framework, the draft says, “can be adopted by Travel Media Networks without change.” The nuances it calls out are “principally around look-back windows, the treatment of bookings versus sales, and the disclosure of sales extrapolation methods.” Incrementality measurement, per the draft, applies “without change.” The cross-reference table marks impressions, clicks, viewability, video completion and GIVT/SIVT as “Existing Standard Applies,” and ROAS gets its own line, “Existing definition applies unchanged,” despite the sale it’s calculated on now meaning something different for travel than it does for retail.
The draft’s own explanation of why the gross-bookings rule needed spelling out is hard to follow: it says the travel treatment “differs from the Commerce Media Measurement Standards’ default assumption of gross sale,” without saying how one gross figure differs from another. We’re quoting it as written. The same sentence adds only that the rule is called out “because the treatment of cancellations in travel differs materially from returns in retail.”
Base Price, Total Price and the Fees in Between
Gross Bookings can be reported on a “Base Price” or “Total Price” basis, and “TMNs should disclose which basis they are reporting against.” Total Price can fold in fees the provider keeps (booking and service fees, baggage, onboard ancillaries, ground and transfer add-ons) as well as fees passed through to someone else (taxes, mandatory surcharges, insurance products). The draft says “disclosure on fee types is required,” though it sets no equivalent requirement for cancellations.
Look-Back and Attribution Defaults
The draft sets these look-back and attribution defaults for travel:
| Element | Draft position |
|---|---|
| Sponsored products look-back | 7 days, “the recommended standard” |
| Display / off-site look-back | 30 days, “the recommended default”; shorter where a partner enforces one (the draft names Meta) |
| Attribution model | Last-touch recommended; multi-touch may be reported alongside it |
| New-to-Advertiser window | 3 years, because “travel purchases are typically infrequent relative to retail purchases” |
| Halo attribution | Same brand, same category, so another hotel under the same brand qualifies |
The draft’s cross-reference table says the “Equivalent of a SKU is a booking” for halo purposes, and its section on same-booking and halo attribution adds: “Same booking attribution should be provided for all sponsored product ads.” A working-group discussion of splitting the new-to-advertiser window by destination distance, in 500-mile increments, is not yet part of the recommended standard; the draft says it is expected in a future iteration.
What Gets Disclosed, and What Doesn’t
Where a travel media network extrapolates sales from a partial dataset, the draft requires that practice to be disclosed: “Organisations must disclose their use of sales extrapolation methods; the specific mathematical details of the methodology do not need to be disclosed.” The same section notes that, “at the time of writing, sales extrapolation is used sparingly by Travel Media Networks.” Cancellations get no disclosure requirement at all, and no cancellation-rate figures appear anywhere in the nine pages. PPC Land’s read of the draft lands on the same clause.
None of this changes how a conversion gets defined on the ad-platform side; that sits a layer below, the kind of rule Google Ads applies when deciding which uploaded records count toward a conversion action. IAB Europe’s draft sets the commerce-side definition underneath attribution: what counts as a sale before any look-back window starts running. Measurement vendors are consolidating around a version of the same question from another angle; Infillion’s pending acquisition of Foursquare would put footfall measurement, and whose definitions govern it, inside one company rather than split across two.
What a Buyer Can Ask For Now
This is a first draft, not a ratified standard. IAB Europe says it’s collecting feedback from stakeholders through October 23. Until that window closes, buyers of travel retail media have a specific list of things to check against reports and ask for: a cancellation-adjusted or net figure reported next to the gross one, the price basis (base or total) a network is using, disclosure of which fee types sit inside that total, and, where sales are extrapolated, confirmation that the practice is disclosed even if the math behind it isn’t. As written, the draft asks networks to disclose the price basis and the fee types they include, but it doesn’t ask for a net or cancellation-adjusted figure.