Unlocking Retail Media Value
NIQ and Unlimitail Join Forces to Advance Omnichannel Retail Media Measurement Globally
NIQ (NYSE: NIQ) and Unlimitail have announced a strategic collaboration to build the next generation of retail media measurement. The deal links NIQ's consumer intelligence tools with Unlimitail's network of 35 retailers, 120+ websites, and 250 million loyalty cardholders across 21 countries, according to The Province.
The partnership aims to fix a major problem: brands spend heavily on retail media ads but can't compare results across retailers. NIQ data shows 67% of CMOs plan to increase retail media spending, yet only 53% trust current measurement tools to show what that spending actually delivers, according to Trentonian.
Brands Have Been Flying Blind on Retail Media ROI
Every major retailer — from Amazon to Carrefour to Walmart — runs its own ad platform. Each one reports results differently. A brand like Unilever would get a different set of numbers from every retailer it advertised with, making it nearly impossible to compare performance or know the true value of its total spend, according to Recorder.
NIQ calls this the "walled garden" problem. Retailers were effectively grading their own homework. By bringing in NIQ as an independent third party, the collaboration gives brands audit-ready data that no single retailer controls. Emilie Darolles, President of West Europe at NIQ, said the goal is to help marketers "move beyond assumptions and confidently demonstrate the impact of their investments."
Unlimitail's Scale Makes This Deal Unique in Europe
Unlimitail was formed in June 2023 by Carrefour and Publicis Groupe at the VivaTech conference in Paris. It launched with 13 retail partners. By 2026, it had grown to 35 retailers and 250 million loyalty cardholders across 21 countries — the largest unified retail media footprint outside the United States, according to Owen Sound Sun Times.
The network's technology runs on Publicis's Epsilon and CitrusAd platforms. Unlimitail CEO Alexis Marcombe has argued that "scalability, connectivity, and consistency" are the keys to pushing retail media beyond the 15% share of brand investment it currently captures. Early pilots showed digital ads drove a 32% lift in physical store conversions — a number NIQ's independent tools will now be used to verify.
Pilot Programs to Launch First in France, Spain, and Brazil
The first real-world tests of the combined system are set to begin in mid-2026. Carrefour operations in France, Spain, and Brazil will serve as the initial markets, according to Ontario Farmer. This matters because 80% of retail sales still happen in physical stores — not online. Proving that a digital ad can drive someone into a store and to the shelf is the core challenge this collaboration wants to solve.
The partnership also plans to use AI-powered analytics to predict which ad placements will drive the most in-store sales before a campaign even launches. If the pilots succeed, the model could be pushed across all 21 countries in Unlimitail's network. Smaller retailers may face pressure to join the NIQ-Unlimitail ecosystem or risk being overlooked by global brands that demand standardized, independent measurement, according to Trentonian.
Privacy Questions Loom Over a 250-Million-Person Data Pool
The scale of the data involved raises real questions. Tracking a digital ad click all the way to a physical grocery receipt — across 250 million loyalty cardholders — puts this collaboration firmly in the sights of EU privacy regulators under GDPR. Both companies say the data is anonymized through "Clean Rooms," secure systems that allow data to be analyzed without exposing individual identities, according to The Province.
Industry analysts say the "Wild West" era of retail media measurement is ending. The biggest praise for the deal is its "interoperability" — the ability to move data across different tech systems without losing accuracy. If NIQ and Unlimitail can prove it works at scale, it could force a new global standard for how brands measure every dollar they spend on retail media.
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