Changes In The Media Measurement Landscape Raise Advertiser Expectations

There’s a NASCAR-style race happening in the world of media measurement: Which media measurement platform will be the first to secure the most partners, the most investments, and the most capabilities in time for the NewFronts and Upfronts? The NewFronts and Upfronts are annual events where television networks and tech giants dramatically unveil their new programming to deep-pocketed advertisers. And it’s where advertisers promise or allocate media dollars in an effort to guarantee their most-desired advertising spots.

Why do Upfronts and NewFronts matter to media measurement vendors? Because these vendors play a crucial role in assessing media value: advertisers and media giants alike use their measurement solutions to estimate media consumption across platforms. Historically, media companies and advertisers relied on Nielsen to establish the media currency that informs the ad buys. However, the rise of players like iSpot.tv, VideoAmp, and ComScore, allow them to select media measurement vendors that have enhanced omnichannel audience viewing data and insights. Advertisers and media companies with more holistic omnichannel media insights can better value media assets and measure potential outcomes. For advertisers, that means more efficient and effective media buys.

The grab for ad dollars in an ever-omnichannel world means that media measurement solutions are looking (and taking action) to upgrade their platforms, enhance their partnerships, or seek more funding for future solution enhancements. Here’s a rundown of significant investments in the media measurement landscape JUST from this past month:

• Roku announced it will add media mix modeling to its ad measurement portfolio to better measure outcomes.
• iSpot.tv received a $325 million investment from Goldman Sachs, where the company will use the funding to expand its offerings, through acquisition, add engineering, product development, and sales.
• Nielsen cut a deal with Vizio to expand its smart TV data deal to include about 20 million U.S. connected TVs.
• TvScientific raised $20 million to automate measurement and activation.

The dizzying changes in the media measurement landscape present an opportunity for marketers: upgrade your media measurement platform to take advantage of the cool new ways to measure ad efficacy, and audiences to (FINALLY) create data-driven omnichannel media plans.

Advertisers: Challenge Media Measurement Partners To Meet Your Growing Omnichannel Advertising Needs

Advertisers need to strike while the iron is hot. Look at your current measurement platform’s capabilities and demand more accurate metrics and insights. Here is a short, but foundational, list of key measures advertisers can expect from an omnichannel media measurement platform.

• Omnichannel reach and frequency metrics across audiences. Stale television-specific reach and frequency metrics fail to capture omnichannel customer behaviors. Look for deduplicated, omnichannel reach and frequency metrics across audiences, so you can manage the cadence and frequency of ads. Advertisers with these metrics can manage audience targeting and overlap across platforms.
• Alternative metrics, like attention or engagement. Some advertisers capture “attention” across digital assets by evaluating proxies, such as time-in-view. For television, vendors like TVision track TV ad attention by capturing opted-in customer data that tracks what people are watching, who’s in the room, and if/when they’re paying attention. They match that data with automatic content recognition (ACR) data on a second-by-second basis to measure how audiences pay attention to ads. Advertisers can target audiences based on “attention” characteristics in an effort to increase incremental sales.
• Outcome-based metrics to measure ad efficacy. Outcome-based metrics measure whether an ad drove the desired outcome or not. Usually, outcome-based metrics are associated with a sales conversion. However, an outcome metric could be conversion and brand metrics. All outcome-based metrics need to be well defined before an ad is launched, so you can successfully measure and manage the metric and ad spot. Outcome-based metrics can help advertisers show the incremental value of ads to the rest of the business.

This post was written by Principal Analyst Tina Moffett and it originally appeared here.