As advertisers demand greater accuracy in their digital media campaigns, Nielsen is integrating viewability measurement into its Digital Ad Ratings. This will allow advertisers to select their preferred provider, and also give media buyers one-stop shopping to view data.
In recent years, the digital ad industry has been shifting away from basing its delivery metrics on served impressions and moving to viewable impressions. When an ad can be measured as viewed, it is deemed more likely to have been seen by a human than a bot or invalid traffic.
Rather than promote a single provider of viewability metrics, Nielsen will offer data from several companies, including DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science and Moat, and the information can even be viewed concurrently. “We are giving clients the flexibility to understand how delivery varies and optimize accordingly,” David Wong, senior VP of Digital Product Leadership at Nielsen said in a news release. “Viewability and fraud are critical industry issues, and we are working with leading technology companies to provide the measurement that our clients demand.”
Media buyers said Nielsen is responding to requests for better measurement of digital ads. “With Nielsen’s ability to combine viewability metrics from our providers of choice with audience measurement, we are meeting the growing need to track in-demo, in-view impressions,” said Mitch Weinstein, senior VP of Ad Operations at IPG Mediabrands.
“We applaud Nielsen’s work to integrate viewability measurement from multiple providers within the Digital Ad Ratings solution,” added Mark Torrance, CTO at Rocket Fuel. “As agencies and advertisers continue to shift to a viewable impression standard, it’s critical that we can measure and optimize the ‘opportunity to see’ within key demographics. Unified measurement will drive efficiency and increase transparency throughout the digital media supply chain.”
Meanwhile, digital measurement provider comScore says digital display ads that run on Digital Content Next trade group member sites delivered higher brand effectiveness than ads that run on non-member sites. “The primary driver of this is increased effectiveness, and the halo effect of the contextual environment in which the ads are seen,” comSore said in a news release.
The Digital Content Next group includes many major digital publishers and comScore notes that DCN did not commission the report. Among the findings, comScore said display ads on DCN premium publisher sites had an average of 67% higher brand lift than non-DCN sites and were three times more effective driving favorability, consideration and intent to recommend. In addition, ads on DCN sites produced higher viewability, indicating greater levels of legitimate traffic.
“In the growing list of reasons why brand marketers need to know where their advertising campaigns are running, this independent report hits the nail on the head,” Jason Kint, CEO of DCN, said in a news release. “comScore’s research clearly connects the dots between high-quality media brands and the value that trusted environments deliver.”