Measurement

For Vice Media, an edgy, youth-oriented publisher rooted in eccentricity, being brand-safe means giving advertisers enough control over their ad placements to keep the briefs coming. “There’s certain content brands would like to be associated with and certain content they would not,” said Andrew Smith, VP of digital for Vice Media. He noted that much of […]

While consumers typically don’t convert after their first contact with a brand, many marketers measure as if they do. But specialty retailer Cariloha, which sells bamboo-based apparel and accessories both online and in 50 stores, is taking a different approach. Rather than assigning 100% of the credit for a conversion to the last ad a […]

Destination marketers get tripped up on attribution. A tourism board, like the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau (PMVB), for example, spans four counties across northeastern Pennsylvania and represents a consortium of hotels, restaurants and activity providers, which makes it difficult to gather real-time metrics on visitation. “Someone might click on an ad and visit our website, […]

ComScore will offer viewability and nonhuman traffic detection for free on desktop and mobile, the company said Wednesday. ComScore’s move to eliminate fees on what it terms “baseline” metrics coincides with its launch of a self-serve interface that integrates both its fraud detection and viewability reporting. The product, which was partly built on comScore’s acquisition […]

Oracle’s acquisition of digital ad measurement firm Moat late Tuesday could put pressure on Nielsen to snap up one of the remaining independent measurement companies like Integral Ad Science or DoubleVerify. “How this will impact media currency folks like Nielsen is a bit hard to say,” said Dave Morgan, CEO of Simulmedia, a TV platform […]

As the upfronts near, Nielsen is trying to prove the efficacy of its total audience measurement. The product, Nielsen’s framework for measuring viewership consumption across all screens, had a limited commercial release in early March. Nielsen has been criticized recently by networks like NBC, which claim total audience measurement is incomplete since it doesn’t consistently […]

Oracle will acquire digital measurement firm Moat extending its marketing and data clouds’ abilities to provide digital advertising analytics to advertising clients and publishers, the company revealed Tuesday. [Read the release]. Deal terms were not disclosed. Moat will join the Oracle Data Cloud, which houses its Datalogix and BlueKai acquisitions. “Moat has grown its attention […]

When it comes to third-party verification, the big digital platforms like Facebook and Google have reason to rush. They’re working on deadline. Marc Pritchard, P&G’s chief brand officer, has made it clear platforms need to implement Media Ratings Council-accredited third-party viewability measurement by the end of the year or risk losing the CPG giant’s business. […]

Colgate-Palmolive is eager to move away from last-click attribution. But similar to most traditional brands, the CFO is being cautious. Moving to more advanced attribution tactics, such as multitouch, isn’t cheap, in terms of vendor fees and internal human capital. “We would have to sell a lot of toothpaste to get return on investment in […]

Roku will offer audience guarantees this upfront season, joining big networks like NBC with similar programs. Several agencies, including Horizon Media and Hill Holliday’s media spinoff, Trilia, are beta testing Roku’s audience guarantees. Roku’s offering is based on the set-top box maker’s existing integration to Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings, which helped buyers determine their waste […]

Apple’s big iOS update last year created large amounts of new media inventory, which the company is monetizing through a big ad deal with NBCUniversal and direct relationships with publishers. Now the mobile platform giant is opening the gates to outside measurement of its ad impressions, AdExchanger has learned. Through its sales agreement with NBCUniversal, Apple […]

Mobile attribution player Kochava souped up its anti-fraud offering on Thursday with a consolidated suite of reports, including access to a global blacklist that updates itself. The dashboard helps advertisers visualize what’s happening with their traffic in real time, with views into things like abnormally high click-to-install ratios, ad stacking clicks and questionable IP addresses. […]

Location-based shopping app Retale will now offer advertisers a warranty: foot traffic or your money back – at least in the form of a media makegood. As of Tuesday, Retale will start doling out performance guarantees against its ability to drive in-store traffic within specific time parameters. “We don’t talk to anybody anymore that doesn’t say they […]

While live sports events like March Madness are TV’s bulwark, money is sloshing into digital and mobile and fraudsters are looking to score. “This is the rule of thumb: Where there’s money, there’s a motive,” said Patrick Murray, VP of product at fraud-detection and analytics company DataVisor. But certain events or times of the year […]

It seems crazy that a marketer at Match Group, which reported $295 million in dating-service revenue in the fourth quarter of 2016 alone, would spend half a day each week downloading and collating CSV files. But that’s just the way it’s been, said James Peng, head of mobile and social acquisition at Tinder and OKCupid […]

The mobile app Ibotta, which offers users cash back on purchases from retail and brand partners, is turning its receipt verification system into an in-store attribution tool. Ibotta users can link a loyalty card account or upload a picture of a store receipt to get cash back on products for which it offers discounts. But […]

Ad tech has a transparency problem. Some are pointing to blockchain as a possible answer. It’s fairly easy for fraudsters or an ill-intentioned party to weasel their way into a programmatic transaction, said Ken Brook, CEO and co-founder of metaX, a blockchain-based ad tech company that launched into beta on Tuesday. “The supply chain is […]

Viewability vendors, including Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify and Moat, are banding together in an uneasy alliance to tackle in-app viewability using open-source software – but the problem is far from solved. “The spirit of the open-source initiative is a good thing,” said Moat CEO Jonah Goodhart. “It’s not comprehensive measurement, though.” Opening The Way In […]

Speaking Thursday at the ANA Media Conference, Procter & Gamble Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard was pleased that Facebook and Google had agreed to independent MRC audits, but he emphasized that the audits are only the first steps toward improving the media supply chain. “It’s not enough to accept [audit pledges] until the audits are […]

Roku generated nearly $400 million in 2016 revenue, mostly from standard hardware sales around its devices. But $100 million of its revenue was attributed to Roku’s media licensing and advertising businesses, which are expected to be its biggest growth drivers. The real MVP of Roku’s media and licensing segment may be the set-top box manufacturer’s […]

The Dentsu Aegis Network is testing a cross-screen measurement system developed by video platform YuMe, released Wednesday, which maps connected TV (CTV) IDs to Nielsen panels. The system gives TV planners access to audience measurement based on demographic breakouts across multiple app publishers through a partnership with Nielsen. Dentsu’s digital video investment team wants a […]

Alain Portmann and Oscar Garza will speak about last click attribution at Programmatic IO on April 5 in San Francisco. Last-click attribution may never die. Although digital multitouch attribution (MTA) pioneers like Visual IQ, Google’s Adometry and AOL’s Convertro hit the market more than a decade ago, last-click remains the prevailing measurement model. Big brands and network agencies still tend […]

ComScore had a rough go of it in 2016, with fierce competition from Nielsen and other media validation companies, culminating in its delisting from the Nasdaq this month. But CEO Gian Fulgoni also expressed disappointment with the performance of comScore’s digital ad measurement tool, Validated Campaign Essentials (vCE), during a corporate update on Friday. Though […]

Gracenote on Thursday rolled out its first update under new owner Nielsen, which bought it for $560 million in December. The offering is an entertainment database that combines its video, music and sports metadata offerings. The company is betting metadata will play a larger part in media monetization. Gracenote tags the programming content it tracks […]

TV viewership is fragmenting faster than the advertising industry’s ability to adapt to it all. And advertisers bracing for the 2017 upfront season aren’t entirely satisfied with the big measurement companies. Consider Nielsen’s delayed Total Content Ratings product and comScore’s accounting snafu and anticipated delisting. “People are in dispute about what the measurement process should be,” […]

Conagra, which owns brands like Chef Boyardee and Orville Redenbacher’s, is no newbie at negotiating for better ad quality. In 2014, it started using comScore’s digital ad effectiveness tools to negotiate delivery guarantees with publishers to ensure display inventory was in view and seen by humans. But ConAgra wants both publishers and advertisers to work […]

Facebook will be audited by the Media Rating Council. (Pause for dramatic effect.) The company said Friday in a blog post that it plans to commit to an independent audit by the MRC in order to verify the accuracy of the measurement it delivers to its ad partners. Facebook had reportedly started talking to the […]

Direct mail has always performed well for Citibank. But like most advertisers, if the company wants to push more dollars into digital, top brass expects marketing to prove the impact on short-term revenue growth. With digital, it can be technically easier to prove – in near real time – what drove a conversion rather than […]

Facebook is activating marketing-mix modeling across Instagram, Audience Network and Facebook proper. On Tuesday, Facebook rolled out a portal that lets advertisers pull campaign data for cross-channel measurement. Only aggregated data will be available across ad formats – reach and volume of impressions by week and geographic area. But it represents another chink in the garden […]

Chinese advertisers want viewability standards – but the country’s unique media landscape offers unusual challenges. “There is definitely a growing concern among advertisers here about wasted media budget and the transparency of their media buying,” said Martin Zhang, CEO and founder of Shanghai-based verification firm Adbug. Zhang is also chair of a Mobile Marketing Association China […]