While there are many ways to view the same content across many devices, measuring that viewership is extremely difficult when data sources are siloed. Marketers need reliable and consistent viewership sources and the ability to streamline and future-proof how to plan, buy, optimize, and measure media exposure. This is especially true when considering the evolving privacy landscape around issues such as cookie and IDFA depreciation, as well as regulatory considerations related to GDPR and CCPA. 

Here’s an overview of the many flavors of viewership data and how data partnerships can empower your marketing strategy, free you up from relying on a single data source, and take your teams’ data knowledge to the next level.

Automated Content Recognition (ACR):

This is a core foundation of digital viewership measurement today and provides an array of valuable opportunities for advertisers. ACR enables many forms of targeting, like competitive conquesting, or showing an ad on CTV to someone unexposed to the same spot on linear TV. ACR is device-level data, not user-level data, and the ACR chip-set is embedded in more than 20 TV brands across 120 million homes in the U.S. that own smart TVs. This number has increased by 39% YoY. 

Why You Need It: 

ACR tech has the potential to capture all types of TV viewing behaviors across linear, video-on-demand, CTV/OTT, commercials, and video games. However, in its pure form, ACR data only shows part of the data picture and often presents the classic linear TV viewership blindspot that can’t distinguish between what was watched on network television versus what was watched via a streaming platform. Despite this, ACR’s ability to capture whatever is running on-screen and link it back to digital campaign exposures makes it an integral component of any cross-channel planning and measurement initiative. 

TV Panel Data:

More commonly known as Nielsen Panel Data, Nielsen’s People Meter data is the media industry “gold standard” for knowing who’s watching what on television and when across all geographical locations. The 45,000-household panel serves as the main data currency for the buying and selling of TV advertising. Nielsen’s panel data represent a cross-section of households throughout the country, and viewing is measured and captured using opt-in people meters.

Why You Need It:

TV panel data can be used to validate ACR and Set-top Box data and the linear reach of a given campaign. If your campaign is geared towards holistic activation, then Nielsen panel data is key for validating your cross-channel measurement. When leveraging ACR or STB (or a combination of the two) to model linear viewership, it is important that your reach projections align with the industry standard, or the currency by which the linear portion of your buy transacted.

Set-Top-Box (STB):

This data source delivers linear television to a home without internet-based, over-the-top devices like Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, or Google Chrome. STB data is collected in more than 40 million households nationwide, and because this is deterministic data, it enables marketers to understand the buying tendencies of households so they can more accurately target specific audiences and buy ads on the shows that the best prospects watch most. Many multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) license set-top box data to comScore, Nielsen, and ad tech companies, which is then sold to TV networks and ad agencies for its ability to track TV viewership, support control/exposed experiments, and inform the creation of custom audiences, and all data is securely anonymized by a third party.

Why You Need It:

STB data is often used to supplement Nielsen Panel Data so marketers can target beyond age and gender. STB can be overlayed with ACR data to determine if viewership data was from a linear airing or not. Modeled STB data can provide the basis for juxtaposing those who were exposed on linear with those who were exposed on digital, including CTV. Linking STB households to digital exposures via a hashed email or IP address can enable the measurement of linear-digital overlap, or incremental reach. 

Credit Bureau:

These organizations serve a variety of market needs, from evaluating consumer credit-worthiness, to providing advanced audience segmentation solutions for advertisers. This type of in-house transaction data, often combined with other proprietary consumer datasets, can serve as the basis for far reaching identity graphs that can be factored into sophisticated multichannel campaigns.  

Why You Need It:

Credit Bureau data can help with audience profiling and segmentation based on purchase and transaction history or other indicators, which can then be linked to ACR, STB, and TV Panel Data to really drill down on performance at the strategic target level, regardless of channel. With advances in technology and shifts in how audiences consume content, CTV is benefiting from a growing share of media dollars from holistic campaign budgets. Given the enhanced targeting capabilities that CTV affords, the channel offers a tremendous opportunity to bring custom identity graphs (enhanced with Credit Bureau data) to strategic target audiences at scale.

Bidstream Data:

A bid request is a set of information sent by ad exchanges to advertisers containing inventory details such as platform type, the number of impressions, and keys to user data (IP, pixels, tags, cookies). The most directly valuable bidstream data is GPS or location info. Location data is the only piece of the bidstream that is actively excised and sold separately, typically by app developers or publishers to location data specialists for targeting or attribution. For example, whether a person who saw a Home Depot ad walked into a Home Depot the next day or week.

Why You Need It:

Bidstream is used when digital activation comes into play, and it contains all of the granular impression and user-level metadata that can be used to inform an advanced analytics strategy. It can also be matched with viewership data from ACR and STB to deduplicate performance across linear and digital. The metadata from CTV activation can be used to uncover new audiences and identify areas to promote media efficiency. You can achieve this by identifying which audience segments indexed highly against which media properties, and how segments compare to each other from an in-flight conversion perspective (offline sales, app downloads, etc.). It is also possible to measure the audience exposure overlap between different publishers, so you can shift budget toward incremental reach.    

One data partner does not fit all marketer needs

While TV is still bought and sold on the Nielsen Currency and will continue to be, no single data provider is a panacea. They all have limitations, and they all continue to evolve. It’s important to diversify your data sets in the correct way so you can elevate your analytics and strengthen your CTV strategy. Diversifying your data can help you future-proof against unexpected market conditions, especially as the industry undergoes systemic change in how identity is defined and traded against. You can achieve this by either partnering directly with the data provider, or by teaming up with a data expert to focus on reach incrementality and strategic audience targeting that combines and maximizes the data sets that can target the most valuable eyeballs across CTV and linear TV. 

For more information on Amobee’s comprehensive data solutions that solve for a variety of programmatic trader, brand strategist, and TV investor needs, contact us at amoobee@solutions.com.

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Solving the cross-channel measurement puzzle, however, is possible today, and having the right solution enables you to un-silo how you plan, buy, and optimize your TV, digital video, CTV investments. Granular measurement and reporting tools improve in-flight decision-making across your TV and digital, and deduplicating reach, frequency, and understanding household actions can help you get ahead of seasonal trends and fine-tune how you allocate media across all screens.

Below are a few examples of how to take your cross-channel strategy to the next level so you can focus on improving outcomes as consumer spending habits recover and the holiday season gets underway.

Auto: Spend money where ad dollars work hardest

For those of you in the auto sector, it was a complicated year with a lot of uncertainties, disrupted campaigns, and a nosedive in consumer confidence. But with 2021 expected to see an 8-10% increase in car sales, eclipsing pre-Covid numbers by 2023, you need to reach beyond KPIs such as website visits and click-through rates, and measure across all your media investments simultaneously to see where your ad dollars are working hardest and where you can drive greater efficiency. 

Seasonality Pro Tip: 

• Get experimental with your ad creative and tap into where the consumer mindset is today compared to last year.
• Use linear attribution studies or digital KPIs to gauge which ad creative resonates most with your target auto intender. 
• Try deploying and measuring those ads holistically across screens. 
• Invest where you’re driving growth by knowing which cross-screen exposure combinations drive the highest action rates such as website visits, dealership enquiries.

Retail: Know what your customers are buying and how to reach them

While Covid posed serious challenges to the retail landscape and accelerated the shift from brick-and-mortar to ecommerce and DTC models, it also inspired many traditional retailers to increase investment and engagement in online channels. Based on record spending last year on Black Friday ($9 billion) and Cyber Monday ($10.8 billion), now is the time to focus on forging and strengthening connections across all screens with consumers who now consider the cross-channel shopping experience a new way of life.

Seasonality Pro Tip: 

• Leverage CTV engagement units to encourage strategic targets to add items to their digital basket from the comfort of their own sofa. 
• Measure which screen exposure combinations deliver the strongest results to inform future spend.
• Use first-party targeting data to notify customers of seasonal in-store deals or loyalty programs while also targeting those less likely to visit a store with digital offers. 

CPG: Connect with first-time buyers and strengthen ties with past purchasers 

Unlike most industries last year, many CPG marketers benefited from a windfall in sales from shelf-stable foods and supplies. With 47% of consumers using online ordering for delivery or click and collect services during Covid, 77% report plans to continue that behavior in the aftermath. CPG sales overall are up 21% year-over-year with no sign of declining to pre-pandemic levels. By deduplicating reach and controlling frequency across TV, CTV, desktop, and mobile, holistic measurement can help you understand the screen exposure combinations that deliver the highest rates of online conversion for your product. 

Seasonality Pro Tip: 

• Lean heavily into geo-location data where appropriate to create relationships with first-time buyers or strengthen ties with past purchasers.
• Unlock consumer first-party data with promotional QR codes, which can be used to create customer profiles around purchase frequency and target light, medium, and heavy purchasers with distinct messaging. 
• Tap into the Back-to-School prep by heavying up spend when and where schools are reopening.
• Alcohol brands may want to target areas where bars are still shuttered to reach at-home drinkers. 

Bridge the gap across TV, CTV, desktop, and social 

No matter which vertical you’re planning and optimizing for, advanced targeting won’t be as effective unless it’s coupled with multichannel reporting to reveal where dollars work hardest across linear and digital. This means the deduplication of reach, frequency, and household actions across TV, CTV, desktop, and mobile to inform in-flight budget allocation. Amobee’s 4Screen measurement reporting is the first solution to pioneer this approach and bridge the gap between linear and digital. To learn more, contact us at solutions@amobee.com 

The post Seasonality Pro Tips For Retail, Auto, and CPG on the Benefits of Cross-Screen Measurement and Reporting appeared first on Amobee.

Streamline campaign activations with common metrics

Bridging the gap between linear TV and digital with common metrics can provide key benefits for decision makers. A converged measurement approach brings teams together and informs more unified multi-channel activation through reach analysis, frequency management, and conversion insights. Using a cross-screen reporting solution enables you to more efficiently:

1. Observe the channels and networks that deliver ideal reach for your campaign and optimize accordingly.
2. Ensure you’re not under or over-indexing against your respective audiences, regardless of which screen they’re on.
3. Analyze the channels and screen combinations that deliver the strongest results for metrics such as offline sales, in-store foot traffic, or app downloads.

Unify and analyze multi-channel buys

Amobee 4Screen reports help marketers make sense of our fragmented media landscape through the application of common metrics. The deduplication of reach, frequency, and conversion rates by linear TV, CTV, desktop, and mobile equips teams with the insights needed to plan holistic campaigns and inform in-flight budget allocations. TV investment teams can showcase the big picture with reporting that validates the efficacy of their buys, spanning both linear TV and digital.

Gain clarity across all cross-screen investments

By being able to navigate the complex media ecosystem and track quantifiable outcomes, agencies can more easily demonstrate the value of their decisioning by showcasing quantifiable outcomes to clients. This is particularly important now with tightened budgets and heightened uncertainty brought about by the pandemic. And broadcasters can showcase the value of their inventory by highlighting incremental reach that can be achieved by purchasing CTV and other digital activations alongside their linear reserves. This can help in the upselling of existing clients or aid in the packaging of broader cross-screen solutions for the market.

Break down silos between linear and digital teams

A converged measurement approach can provide a common framework for bringing teams together. Here are a few tips on how to get started with 4Screen reporting: 

1. Run a report of your existing media to create a baseline from which to plan and compare future activations against.
2. Once you have a benchmark of recent media performance, set clear objectives on what you are looking to accomplish with your next campaign. Do you want to extend reach by screen, adjust frequency levels, heavy-up in channel combinations that delivered stronger conversion rates?
3. Work with your Amobee solutions partner to develop a plan tailored toward your preferred outcomes, and activate, measure, and repeat.  

Explore the benefits of full campaign reporting integration

Contact us solutions@amobee.com for a walkthrough of how Amobee 4Screen can help you apply converged measurement and reporting to your multi-channel campaigns. Please check out this webinar on how 4Screen Reports can help guide marketers during the Covid reset, and our 4Screen guide with Molson Coors. Also, please reference our informative one-sheet on Amobee 4Screen.

The post Getting Started Today With Measurement Across TV, CTV, Desktop, and Mobile appeared first on Amobee.

• Accelerated content consumption during Covid-19 underscores the need for breakthroughs in how the industry measures how, where, and what people watch. 
• Without reliable measurement, marketers can miss key insights, waste budget on inefficient campaigns, and misattribute performance metrics.  
• Advanced measurement tools exist today for ambitious marketers to track unduplicated reach & frequency across linear TV, CTV, desktop, and mobile.

The rise in adoption of connected TV (CTV), over-the-top (OTT), and other internet-enabled viewing platforms outside of linear TV has created demand for new ways of tracking and measuring campaign exposure, regardless of medium. 

While many falsely assume that the technology for converged measurement is not there yet, tools do exist today for ambitious marketers who are looking to take campaign performance to the next level and bridge the gap between siloed media channels.

Without reliable measurement, marketers can miss key insights, waste budget on inefficient campaigns, and misattribute performance metrics, skewing their understanding of what’s really moving the needle—which has never been more important than in the age of Covid as cross-channel content consumption hits new records. 

A true converged measurement approach allows marketers to see beyond the sum of a campaign’s respective media channels and gain insight from a bigger picture otherwise unavailable to them. 

Here are key questions to ask your measurement partner about their solution:

• Can this measurement solution identify cross-screen overlap?
• Can it track unduplicated reach and frequency across linear and digital?
• Can it track actions or conversions and be leveraged during a campaign to allow for in-flight optimization?
• Do you have prior use cases or success stories (with statistics) that showcase the tangible value to be had from leveraging your converged measurement solution?
• Can this solution also be leveraged by broadcasters to showcase the value of their cross-screen inventory?
• If the answer to any of these is no, then steer clear.    
• And finally, ensure that a prospective partner for an advanced measurement solution can describe what they do succinctly and without an alphabet soup of acronyms or “caveats.”

Benefits of true converged measurement

In the age of Covid, it’s important for advertisers, agencies, and broadcasters to take a closer look at their multichannel investments and inventory through a converged lens in order to reap the greatest possible value from their media activations. 

Holistic analytics that leverage common metrics across screens enable the next generation of multi-channel investment decisioning by enhancing reach by platform, managing holistic frequency, and optimizing toward online conversions or offline actions in a platform agnostic manner.   

Amobee’s 4Screen is the first-ever report to provide unified insights across TV, CTV, desktop, and mobile, enabling advertisers to increase investment efficiency, reduce cross-screen overlap, and drive incremental reach.

Contact Amobee today at Solutions@amobee.com to unlock the power of converged measurement with Amobee 4Screen. For a real-world example of how 4Screen can improve campaign results and reduce waste, please read our 4Screen report on measuring TV,  CTV, desktop, and mobile, or reference the Amobee 4Screen product sheet.

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