essential resources.

Built for the realities of Southeast Asia and India, The ABCs of Responsible AI Integration help companies move forward with regulatory alignment as AI becomes embedded in everyday digital marketing practice.

February 5, 2026

The IAB SEA+India Essential Resources hub brings together our most useful, evergreen content, built with input from our Board and Councils.

Looking for the what to do next? Start here. A curated collection of our highest-impact resources: practical guides, concise frameworks, research summaries, and policy explainers for the SEA + India market.

ai

The IAB SEA+India AI Council brings together technology leaders from across the digital marketing ecosystem to address the region’s most critical AI implementation challenges and opportunities. Council Members lead presentations and discussions on priority topics, with the IAB SEA+India team developing these into features to share the Council’s insights and guidance with the wider industry. Presenters: Haroon Qureshi, WPP Media; Matthew Drury, Meta; Shubham Dubey, The Coca-Cola Company Discussion...

AI tools are now helping teams generate campaigns faster than audiences can absorb them, only 30% of viewable inventory captures attention. With creative volume no longer a challenge, the question becomes how AI gets applied for better campaign results.

Marketing teams across Southeast Asia and India now know campaign outcomes before launch. AI processes real-time behavioural signals to identify which users will convert, when they’ll engage, and what message will resonate. Teams predict success during activation rather than waiting for post-campaign analysis, with humans providing strategic direction while AI multiplies their capabilities.

AI processes and connects behavioural signals to find valuable audiences, evaluates thousands of inventory sources for performance patterns and identifies which signal combinations predict campaign outcomes from awareness through consideration to purchase. The result is new growth segments and better campaign performance across seven complex markets.

Southeast Asia and India are abandoning manual media buying processes which can consume hours daily for AI systems delivering measurable efficiency gains and cost reductions. The result: more relevant advertising experiences for consumers and better business outcomes for brands.

In Part 2 of our series on AI in Advertising discover how AI is enhancing personalisation, targeting, and customer interaction. From chatbots to video content enhancement and language localisation, see how AI is reshaping the way brands in Southeast Asia and India engage with their audiences.

AI is revolutionising Advertising in Southeast Asia and India. Explore Part 1 of our exciting two-part series on AI in Advertising, packed full of examples. From creative innovation to data analytics, discover how AI is reshaping the marketing landscape.

Author: Shabana Badami, Google | IAB SEA+India AdTech & Innovation Regional Council AI is the most profound technology human-kind is working on today. It is seen as the third major shift in technology — after the arrival of the internet, and the move to mobile. Both of these shifts created new growth and opportunities, as will AI; and optimising AI will become a discipline in its own right.

Author: Khanh P. Dang, Google APAC | IAB SEA+India Commerce Council subgroup Automated campaigns can unlock speed, scale and success using machine learning tools, allowing retailers to assess signals in real time, capturing the innumerable signals unique to each user. It also simplifies optimisation at scale, particularly within omnichannel shopping. So why are brands and retailers slow to adopt automation solutions?

measurement

In Southeast Asia and India, the shift from multichannel to omnichannel marketing is reshaping customer engagement, intertwined with the evolving roles of privacy and AI. Explore these compelling insights, complete with case studies, to navigate the intricacies of the regional digital marketing landscape.

Author: Darshan Radia, Dentsu International

Today’s online consumers want privacy, transparency, choice and control over how their data is used. Without cookies, how can marketers identify, group, and target audiences; and measure return on ad spend? Our Data & Attribution Council explains what you can do.

Authors: Tashmeet Kaur Magnite, Weng Wai Koh Bytedance, Valerie Jaquet InMobi, Rohan Paul Essence

Guidelines for measurement of audio, video/OTT and in-game advertising in programmatic.

A comprehensive overview comparing traditional options used in digital advertising today with impacts and alternative identifiers and digital dimensions that will characterise the post-cookie era.

programmatic

Authors: Nishith Saraswath, Mediaocean; Diet Pineda, The Trade Desk; Shrivardhan Sarda, Yahoo; Gibson Camson, Carousell Media Group | IAB SEA+India Programmatic Council subgroup

This is the era of advertising where measurement and attribution are key tools in the success of advertising campaigns. Yet attribution remains a challenge as the ecosystem evolves. Enter Multi Touch Attribution, the first step towards overcoming these challenges.

Author: Saurabh Golani, Microsoft Header bidding simultaneously sends a bid request to all available buyers without the issues which came with the waterfall method. However, as Saurabh Golani from Xandr explains, publishers have been struggling with the setup and options for video header bidding.

Author: Adrian Teh, Teads

A cookieless future could result in more creative and innovative campaigns that focus on providing value rather than simply selling products. Our Programmatic Council reports on the future landscape with how to overcome the challenges along the way.

Authors: Tashmeet Kaur Magnite, Weng Wai Koh Bytedance, Valerie Jaquet InMobi, Rohan Paul Essence

Guidelines for measurement of audio, video/OTT and in-game advertising in programmatic.

retail media

Retail media networks across Southeast Asia and India now operate across four distinct types, each delivering different data capabilities that marketers can match to campaign objectives. E-commerce marketplaces provide commerce data tracking online behaviors. Omnichannel retailers add in-store purchase signals. Superapps deliver deterministic behavioral data from mobility, payments, and food delivery. Specialist verticals in travel, property, and automotive offer high-value audience signals for consideration...

Retail media measurement in Southeast Asia and India can connect the dots from first impression to final sale and beyond. Marketers can map complete funnels, set stage-specific KPIs, add third-party validation, and share data across platforms to see which upper-funnel investments drive lower-funnel results, where audiences overlap across platforms, and how trade and media budgets combine for growth.

Non-endemic brands are rapidly adopting retail media across Southeast Asia and India, drawn by the precision of first-party shopper data. Sectors from finance to government are proving that retail networks can deliver measurable outcomes and this signals retail media’s evolution into a strategy where every advertiser can achieve growth.

Retail media fragmentation costs brands measurable growth opportunities in Southeast Asia and India. Three proven strategies – aligning trade and media teams, extending digital capabilities into traditional trade, and understanding diverse partner systems – can break down silos and create connected campaigns delivering both commercial and brand outcomes.

Our Retail Media Council reveals full-funnel strategies for SEA and India’s digital consumers. Discover top, middle, and bottom funnel tactics reshaping retail media.

Retail media networks in SEA & India are booming, presenting a vast landscape of untapped investment opportunities. Our Retail Media Council shares insights on the challenges and strategies to unlock this potential for exponential growth.

The surging Retail Media Network sector in Southeast Asia & India, is projected to reach $160 billion by 2025. Learn how RMNs are offering retailers new avenues for monetisation and customer engagement. Click for strategies, insights and case studies.

Authors: Samantha Pearlson and Fai-keung Ng, The Trade Desk
IAB SEA+India Retail Media Regional Council

With retail data solutions, using an off-site media platform advertisers not only get access to valuable audience segments for effective targeting, but they can also enjoy transparent reporting and closed-loop measurement through partnerships with leading retailers.

Author: JJ Eastwood, Chair IAB SEA+India Regional Board. Retail media is a game-changer in the advertising industry, offering brands unparalleled opportunities to connect with consumers in a targeted and personalised manner, and projections estimate it to be a market worth over $160 billion by 2027.

Author: James Sampson, GrabAds | IAB SEA+India Commerce Council subgroup

While Retail Media is a growing global phenomenon, advertisers in Southeast Asia will be able to provide richer, full funnel consumer experiences via superapps in available markets. In fact, now superapp advertising is its own distinct media category.

We partnered with the Carousell Media Group to survey Asia marketers on the retail media phenomenon. There were just under 2000 survey responses from advertising decision makers across Asia, the majority being from marketers with 17+ years experience. Read our report to find out more about how retail media advertising is opening up entirely new opportunities for brands.

The Carousell Media Group (CMG) and the IAB SEA+India have released a new report showing a digital disruption spurred on by the migration of users from offline to online. More than 61,500 respondents in 5 countries in Asia were surveyed.

social scorecards

comscore india monthly social scorecard jan 2026

How are India’s biggest brands and influencers driving social engagement each month, and what can marketers learn from them? The IAB SEA+India x Comscore India Monthly Social Scorecard tracks the country’s top performers, spotlighting where audiences are spending attention and how engagement is shifting across platforms. Download as a pdf want to download more social scorecards? We’ve partnered with Comscore to give you a monthly scorecard on all things social in India. view all

comscore india monthly social scorecard december 2025

comscore india monthly social scorecard november 2025

comscore india monthly social scorecard october 2025

member discussions

WARC’s Rica Facundo explores the “democratising” effect of creators and AI in Asia’s social commerce ecosystem and the role of brand building in feeding the machine.

See how digital leaders are navigating CTV's hybrid role - combining TV's reach with digital precision while solving unique regional challenges in measurement and scale.

New IAB SEA+India x WARC feature on data privacy in Asia, with insights from our Responsible Privacy Council, highlights the importance of clear definitions and collaborative cross-departmental efforts in navigating the complex privacy landscape.

India's marketing effectiveness explored in the first IAB SEA+India x WARC feature, with exclusive insights from our Regional Board on the challenges and opportunities unique to this diverse market. Discover how cultural nuances, data, and infrastructure shape the landscape.