attribution

Bridging the Human-to-AI Identity Gap

  • ARF COUNCIL REPORT
  • CROSS-PLATFORM MEASUREMENT COUNCIL

As generative search and agentic AI transform how consumers discover, evaluate and purchase products, traditional identity resolution and attribution systems are struggling to keep pace. This new paper by the Identity Resolution Working Group of the ARF Cross-Platform Measurement Council, introduces the concept of “Delegated Identity”—a framework designed to reconnect human intent with AI-driven actions in an increasingly AI-mediated marketplace. The report explores the emerging identity gap, evaluates industry readiness and outlines the challenges and opportunities facing marketers, identity providers and AI platforms.

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Scaling Causal Measurement: A New Path Beyond Attribution

  • ARF; MSI

Randomized controlled trials remain the gold standard for measuring advertising effectiveness, but they are often too costly and complex to deploy across every campaign. This MSI Working Paper introduces Predicted Incrementality by Experimentation (PIE), a new framework that uses data from a limited set of experiments to predict causal advertising effects for campaigns that are not directly tested. The research demonstrates that PIE can dramatically outperform traditional attribution metrics, offering marketers a practical way to scale causal measurement without scaling experimentation itself.

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What Marketers Need to Know About Retail Media Measurement

  • ARF ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Retail Media Networks (RMNs) have become a cornerstone of modern advertising, but measurement practices across networks remain inconsistent and difficult to compare. This new ARF study examines 16 major RMNs to uncover how advertising assets, attribution systems, incrementality testing and closed-loop measurement are actually implemented in practice. The findings reveal that while reporting dashboards may appear unified, the underlying measurement systems often rely on disparate sources of retailer data, platform reporting, modeling and privacy-safe integrations. The report offers practical guidance for advertisers evaluating retail media investments and highlights the growing need for industry-wide measurement transparency and standards.

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