TV advertising is in the middle of a tectonic shift. GRPs are out, and impressions are on their way in.
But plenty of advertisers still want to buy local and national spots based on region. And for small, local marketers accustomed to the relative simplicity of linear TV ad buying, the lack of standards in over-the-top (OTT) ad measurement is becoming a real pain in the tush.
Local buyers want OTT inventory to boost their scale.
But without standards for how to apply data and measure placements, advertisers are confused about what degree of measurement is realistic at the local level, said Traci Will, VP of analytics at Gamut Media, a digital ads solutions subsidiary of Cox Media Group, speaking during the Advertising Research Foundation’s attribution summit this week.
And without standards, Will said, vendors are trying to sponge up enough signal to at least ensure that ads are running against audiences and placements that align with a brand’s campaign objectives.
Gamut has been working with alternate currency provider iSpot since 2020 in an effort to patch some of these measurement holes for local buyers.
Better in increments
Better incrementality measurement and attribution are critical to the growth of local OTT, said Stuart Schwartzapfel, EVP of media partnerships at iSpot, also speaking at the event.
ISpot measures Gamut’s local streaming campaigns against addressable device impressions at the household level across specific DMAs. Local advertisers need to know the impact their campaign is having in their own community.
“Aggregate metrics at the region or state level aren’t good enough for local customers,” Will said.
But, perhaps more importantly, iSpot compares local OTT campaigns with their linear counterparts to measure incremental reach.
Advertisers that are just starting to invest in streaming want assurance that there will be a tangible benefit if they spend in that channel beyond what they’re already investing in linear, Schwartzapfel said. That is why iSpot prioritizes “understanding a campaign’s reach and frequency associated with incrementality above and beyond linear,” he added.
Based on the billions of impressions iSpot has helped Gamut measure so far, Gamut’s local OTT campaigns can garner anywhere between 46% and 80% incremental household reach across benchmarks for 18 different ad categories, Will said.
Attribution fusion
Still, brands aren’t trying to serve ads to more people just for kicks. Sales and outcomes are the end game, Schwartzapfel said.
ISpot relies on third-party data partnerships and integrations to overlay conversion data onto its audience measurement data, including foot traffic, geolocation, website visits and online conversions. (And, for what it’s worth, NBCUniversal just gave iSpot a vote on cross-screen attribution capabilities in its recent measurement vendor comparison.)
But tying CTV reach to outcomes is far from a solved problem.
Ad exposure might happen on a CTV device, but conversions typically occur on a different screen. (TV shopping hasn’t taken off – not yet, at least.) And so TV measurement providers have to lean on third-party data partnerships to create attribution models.
For now, though, iSpot can help determine the scale of impressions that local advertisers would need in order to make conversion-based campaigns feasible at a local level Schwartzapfel said.
Digital TV measurement standards may not exist yet, he said, but access to more data transparency can help broadcasters, streaming services and measurement providers manage buyer expectations.
