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DoorDash Ads has had its incrementality measurement certified by the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM). The review, announced on 2 September 2026, covers Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands and is meant to make it clearer whether campaigns actually generate additional sales, rather than just attributing purchases that would have happened anyway.
The announcement came at SHOWCASE, a new upfront format for retail and commerce media networks in New York. For marketers, the combination is what matters most: Retail Media is not only growing as an advertising channel, it is also trying to tie its measurement standards more closely to independent review.
AAM reviews methodology, data and disclosure
The AAM launched its new incrementality certification programme in June. The review covers, among other things, measurement methods and data sources, calculation and reporting, and transparency about assumptions and limitations. According to the AAM, the programme is based on the incrementality guidelines from IAB and IAB Europe.
According to the company, DoorDash's review covered first-party measurement for Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands, including data governance, causal tests, metric calculation and customer documentation.
This is an important difference from classic ROAS reporting. In commerce media especially, the central question is not just whether a sale happened after an ad was shown, but whether the advertising caused that sale in addition to what would have happened anyway.
Similar questions lie behind the FTC lawsuit against Amazon's advertising auctions and the broader debate about how much control platforms hold over buying, delivery and measurement at the same time. With AI in media buying, the same demand for independent control is becoming even more important.
DoorDash publishes additional lift data
Alongside the certification, DoorDash published results from two external collaborations. A household lift study with Circana found 0,59 US dollars of additional in-store sales per household for an unnamed beverage brand; 56 percent of the buyers reached via DoorDash were, according to the study, additional reach for the brand compared with the physical store business.
An analysis with Ipsos MMA across six national quick-service restaurant advertisers also concluded that orders rather than impressions or clicks are the more reliable input for marketing mix models. On average, 42 percent of the modelled effect still carried over into the following week.
These figures come from studies commissioned by DoorDash or jointly published, and cannot simply be transferred to other brands or markets. The individual number matters less than the attempt to make commerce media impact more reliable through external partners and standardised reviews.
Other retail media networks are also currently expanding their measurement and data access. For example, Simon Media Network combines shopping centre data with offsite advertising, while Ace Hardware has expanded its Retail Media with programmatic, creator activation and incrementality measurement.
Retail Media gets its own upfront structures
SHOWCASE describes itself as the first joint retail and commerce media upfront. According to the organisers, the participating networks together represent more than 12 billion US dollars in advertising revenue per year and around 1 billion US dollars in retail sales.
That Retail Media is now building its own upfront structures shows how strongly the channel is moving into classic media planning processes. At the same time, pressure is growing to justify impact with more than platform-owned attribution figures.
For advertisers, the decisive question in future is therefore likely to be less which network reports the highest ROAS, and more how cleanly incrementality, data access and independent validation are handled.