Measurement

Let’s close out the year with a roundup of the most impactful CTV stories of the year, from Netflix’s ad surge to Nielsen’s measurement missteps.

Attribution measurement is still a mess; video podcasting struggles with effective advertising; and NIL deals are taking off for student athletes.

The VAB is accusing Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel of producing “instability, inconsistency and irrational” TV audience measurement results, particularly when compared to its legacy panel-only product.

Agency buyers are facing a new wave of Google account hijackings that steal funds and lock out admins for weeks or even months.

Meta is profiting from fraudulent ads; LLMs are taking advantage of SaaS pricing policies; and agencies aren’t going under… yet.

Meta says “trust the machine” – but marketers are finding out that automated ad platforms, including Advantage+, don’t always know best.

Our industry has done a terrible job rewarding publishers for monetization choices that align their supply to quality and outcomes vs. short-term yield bumps. But is it overly optimistic to think The Trade Desk’s recent moves prove that’s changing?

CleanTap claims that 100% of the invalid traffic it spoofed was accepted into live auctions run by programmatic platforms and was successfully bid on by advertisers.

Live from New York at Programmatic IO, the AdExchanger editorial team debriefs what ad tech’s brightest minds are saying and doing around AI and measurement.

The real risk isn’t in running robust tests; it’s in wasting money or cutting high-performing channels based on misleading conclusions from bad measurement.

Trevor Carr, newly appointed Head of CSA, North America at Havas, discusses data and tech consulting and AI trends.

Morgan Stanley downgrades The Trade Desk; Warner Bros. Discovery and Nielsen announce a new deal; and brands aren’t sold on virtual influencers.

HyphaMetrics had barely taken its first steps as a new startup before drawing the ire of measurement juggernaut Nielsen. Four years and several lawsuits later (including one jury trial win for HyphaMetrics), CEO Joanna Drews is more than ready to get the company moving forward again.

Incubeta announced its acquisition of RocketSource, a consultancy that helps advertisers understand what drives customer behavior using data science and predictive analytics.

Comscore’s new AI-based initiative allows data providers to convert ID-based datasets into ID-free audience segments, helping advertisers target audiences with improved accuracy and privacy.

Television advertising has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years, with connected TV (CTV) emerging as a powerful channel for marketers seeking the impact of traditional television with the precision of digital targeting.

OpenX filed a lawsuit against Google over its anticompetitive practices. And HyphaMetrics claimed victory against Nielsen in court over a patent lawsuit.

Late last week, a federal jury in Delaware found in favor of HyphaMetrics, a measurement startup Nielsen was suing for allegedly infringing on two of its patents.

Change can be bumpy. From The Trade Desk’s Solimar-to-Kokai transition to Nielsen’s transition to its Big Data + Panel offering, we go inside customers’ challenges with these two transforming platforms.

Now that upfront negotiations are almost over, the industry appears to have settled back into its default position of being mad at Nielsen – which is likely good news for its currency competitors, but not so great for everyone else in the meantime.

DCG’s new tool analyzes the given moment – culturally, politically and economically – to understand how to best target its audience.

With over $200 billion in programmatic spending on the table next year, maximizing yield is the name of the game for publishers in 2026. Capturing that opportunity demands maximum optionality across demand paths and signals. And with AI reshaping the landscape (referrals from ChatGPT to news publishers saw a 25x increase from the first half of 2024 to the first half of 2025, while traditional search traffic heads in the other direction) it is more important than ever for publishers to optimize their monetizable inventory.

The Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER) is a data-driven advertising metric that’s been around for many years but is now reaching mainstream, or to some at least, revered status.

Netflix cracks Nielsen’s top 3 channels, but YouTube is still tops; CTV is maturing as a marketing channel, but it comes with zits; and Google rolls out another core update for search.

Over the past few years, sell-side curation has gained popularity as a way for advertisers to target high-quality publishers. Companies like OpenX are expanding their toolkits to support advertisers as well as publishers.

Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp all reaffirmed last year’s full certification and currency-grade readiness, according to the broadcaster-backed joint industry committee (JIC)’s mid-term audit released Thursday.

AI Overviews makes dodgy product recommendations because it scrapes marketing copy; discrepancies in TV ratings hamper upfronts negotiations; and why mar tech companies are building software fortresses.

There’s no way around using an assortment of measurement methodologies, says Owen Bickford, the paid performance media director at Alaska Airlines. “I don’t think they can work in a vacuum.”

Ron Jacobson took the classic programmatic startup route. Which is to say, he pivoted randomly from a software job at a bank (well, the New York Fed), landed at an ad tech company and later founded his own ad tech startup before getting acquired by yet another ad tech company.

A recent Google DV360 Help Center update had some advertisers panicking that invalid impressions served through Google’s ad platform would soon double. But now Google says that’s not really the case.