
In this article…
As audiences shift from linear TV to streaming and digital platforms, measurement is becoming more complex and critical. In 2024, brands that can unify impressions across channels, resolve identity, and connect measurement to business outcomes will gain a significant advantage.
Here’s what advertisers and platforms need to know.
Why TV measurement is under pressure
One name has long stood as the bedrock in TV measurement: Nielsen.
Nielsen
Nielsen is a leading provider of TV audience measurement and analytics. It is known for its TV rating system, which tracks viewership across various demographics and time slots. Nielsen’s data is used by media companies, advertisers, and broadcasters to understand audience preferences, develop, and plan advertising campaigns, and monitor program performance.
Nielsen’s recent global expansion
Nielsen has continued to expand its global coverage and now fully represents 100% of TV households in the continental U.S., delivering comprehensive and accurate audience measurement. Through this expansion, Nielsen has remained a go-to resource for domestic and international television analytics.
In 2021, Nielsen faced a significant setback when it was stripped of its MRC (Media Rating Council) accreditation, sending shockwaves through the industry. While the accreditation was eventually reinstated in 2023, the incident underscored the need for diversification and alternatives within TV measurement.
TV measurement competitor outlook
For decades, advertisers and agencies have relied on Nielsen’s metrics as the gold standard, a trusted source of data guiding ad spending and campaign strategies. However, recent developments have shaken this foundation, prompting a reevaluation of the TV measurement landscape.
One notable trend emerging in TV measurement in 2024 is the increasing interest in alternative measurement providers. As advertisers seek greater transparency, accuracy, and flexibility in measurement, many are exploring options beyond Nielsen. These providers offer distinct advantages and drawbacks, presenting advertisers and agencies with a wealth of options and considerations.
Panel-based TV measurement providers
Panel-based TV measurement has long been a staple in the industry, relying on representative samples of viewers to extrapolate audience behavior. In 2024, several providers offer panel-based solutions, each with different strengths.
Comscore
Comscore is a key player in panel-based TV measurement, offering comprehensive audience measurement solutions for both linear and digital television. With its massive panel of opted-in households, Comscore provides advertisers with detailed demographic and behavioral insights, enabling targeted advertising strategies. Comscore recently earned MRC accreditation for total household and average audience measurement in national and local TV reports.
Kantar Media
Kantar Media offers a range of panel-based TV measurement services, including audience measurement, ad effectiveness measurement, and competitive intelligence. With its global footprint and deep expertise in media analytics, Kantar Media helps advertisers understand audience trends and optimize their media investments.
Kantar Media is currently working to create a cross-media measurement panel similar in size to what Nielsen offers. While Kantar Media does not presently operate in the U.S. TV measurement market, it would be a formidable competitor should it move into the arena.
ACR-based TV measurement providers
Automatic content recognition (ACR) technology has revolutionized TV measurement, allowing for real-time monitoring of content consumption across devices. In 2024, several providers use ACR technology to deliver innovative measurement solutions.
iSpot.TV
iSpot.TV has emerged as a leading provider of ACR-based TV measurement, using its advanced technology stack to capture and analyze TV ad exposures in real-time. Through its acquisition of 605, iSpot.TV strengthens its position in the market, offering advertisers enhanced audience targeting and attribution capabilities.
iSpot.tv’s ad catalog and ad occurrence data are fully accredited by the MRC, which is one of its strongest assets.
Samba TV
Samba TV offers a comprehensive ACR-based TV measurement platform, providing advertisers with insights into audience behavior across linear, streaming, and connected TV environments. With its robust data infrastructure and machine learning algorithms, Samba TV enables advertisers to optimize their TV advertising campaigns for maximum impact.
Samba has recently partnered with HyphaMetrics to create an alternative panel to compete with others in the market.
TVision
TVision is a smaller competitor in this group that blends ACR-based TV measurement solutions with a panel-based approach, offering advertisers and networks real-time visibility into viewer engagement and attention metrics. By tracking viewer attention and emotional response, TVision helps advertisers understand the effectiveness of their TV ad campaigns and make data-driven decisions.
Advantages of alternative measurement providers
As the TV measurement landscape evolves in 2024, alternative providers present compelling advantages over traditional approaches, with three key benefits to consider.
- Diverse data sources: Alternative providers use a wide array of data sources, including set-top boxes, smart TVs, streaming platforms, and digital devices, offering a more comprehensive view of audience behavior.
- Granular insights: Many alternative providers offer granular insights into viewer demographics, preferences, and engagement metrics, allowing for more targeted and effective advertising strategies.
- Real-time analytics: Some providers deliver real-time insights that let advertisers optimize campaigns on the fly and quickly act on emerging trends.
Challenges with alternative measurement providers
Alternative providers face several key challenges that need to be addressed before they are widely adopted. Let’s dive into each challenge in more detail.
Fragmentation
With multiple providers using different methodologies and metrics, achieving standardization and comparability across campaigns can be a daunting task.
With the proliferation of over-the-top (OTT) services, the TV measurement landscape has become increasingly complex, with new platforms emerging regularly. While ACR technology has enhanced data collection directly from televisions, the market remains highly fragmented, with many manufacturers (like Vizio, LG, and Samsung) building their own ACR solutions.
We’ve teamed up with both LG and Samsung to make our identity and audience solutions available directly within their platforms, enhancing targeting, activation, and measurement capabilities for advertisers in the CTV space.
Data privacy concerns
As TV measurement becomes increasingly data-driven, concerns around consumer privacy and data ethics loom large, necessitating robust privacy protocols and compliance measures. We’ve already seen lawsuits around the ACR approach to TV measurement.
Education and adoption
Shifting away from the familiar territory of Nielsen requires education and buy-in from stakeholders, including advertisers, agencies, and media buyers, which can be a gradual and iterative process.
Next steps for an identity graph in TV measurement
As the TV measurement landscape trends toward a blend of options instead of singular approaches, the ability to identify and target audiences across platforms is crucial. An identity graph serves as a foundational tool that can enable brands and advertisers to resolve disparate data sources into a unified view of the consumer.
Experian’s Digital Graph includes more than 4 billion digital identifiers in the U.S., such as mobile ad IDs (MAIDs), universal IDs, connected TV (CTV) IDs, third-party cookies, and hashed emails (HEMs). Representing 250 million individuals and 275 million CTV IDs, it helps advertisers maintain consumer connections as signals fade. Our ability to merge offline and digital data delivers stronger ID resolution, cross-channel attribution, and clearer insights into audiences across streaming, linear, and digital environments.
And because identity is only as powerful as the activation it enables, Experian’s data marketplace makes these audiences directly addressable across TV platforms. Advertisers can seamlessly activate custom audience segments for CTV, streaming, and linear partners – all while maintaining the same identity foundation across planning, targeting, and measurement.
As advertisers navigate the complexities of the TV measurement landscape in 2024, combining Experian’s Digital Graph, Offline Graph, and data marketplace will be essential for building effective cross-channel advertising strategies and maximizing ROI.
How Experian supports TV measurement
Experian has been in the TV measurement space for decades and offers flexible attribution reports that can attribute media spend on TV to real actions or outcomes, such as website visits, physical location visits, and online and offline sales. We also have unique data through our automotive and financial databases that can be used for attribution.
Through our Consumer Sync solutions, you can elevate your attribution quality to understand the true path to conversion by linking all digital touchpoints to a single person.
The next frontier of TV measurement
TV measurement in 2024 presents both challenges and opportunities for understanding audience behaviors and preferences. We anticipate a continued migration toward alternative providers as advertisers seek greater flexibility and accuracy in measurement. We expect a fragmented future for TV measurement, where data sources extend beyond traditional giants like Nielsen to include numerous smaller players. Despite the entrenched role of linear TV measurement, advertisers must adapt to a blend of data from diverse sources to navigate the evolving landscape.
At Experian, we have the solutions to help you tackle 2024 marketing trends and make the most of your consumer marketing data. Our Graph enables seamless tracking across devices and channels, allowing us to implement first-touch, last-touch, and multi-touch attribution models with unparalleled accuracy. By harnessing the capabilities of our Graph, our attribution solutions can assign value to every crucial touchpoint in the customer journey, giving you a more holistic and comprehensive view of your campaign performance.
Connect with an Experian expert to learn more about how we can help you succeed in your marketing efforts.
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As technology reshapes our media experience, TV remains a powerful channel for content consumption. In our next Ask the Expert series, we dive into a pivotal subject – the convergence of TV, linear (conventional broadcast and cable TV), and digital marketplaces. In this Q&A segment, we’re joined by two industry experts, Dan Hickox, VP of Development & Partnerships at 605, an iSpot.tv Company, and Chris Feo, Experian’s SVP of Sales & Partnerships, who guide us through an engaging discussion on convergent TV, attribution, measurement, and safeguarding personal data in the evolving landscape of TV advertising. How convergent TV is changing the future of advertising The convergence of traditional TV and digital streaming platforms presents an innovative opportunity for advertisers to engage their target audience. With convergent TV, you can create campaigns that bridge the gap between linear and streaming, ensuring your message reaches your target audience while avoiding ad fatigue. Along with high-quality content, extensive inventory, and targeting capabilities, convergent TV offers advanced measurement and attribution tools that will empower you to optimize advertising campaigns for maximum impact. You can make better decisions regarding when and where to strategically allocate your advertising budgets with effective TV measurement and attribution. Attribution in converged TV TV attribution involves tracing consumer actions and uncovering valuable insights into their behavior. With these insights, you can gain a clear understanding of the audience exposed to your ads and their actions in response. Lean into data attribution tools to track your target audience throughout the customer buying journey. Measurement in converged TV In contrast, TV measurement enables the tracking of performance TV advertising campaigns to assess campaign effectiveness. Through converged TV measurement solutions, you can rely on a singular data source, unifying different channels, devices, and metrics for actionable insights. This analysis will give you insights into the audience reached, their location, and the resulting actions taken. TV attribution’s impact on cross-channel media Embracing an omnichannel advertising approach is vital. Evaluating advertising campaigns across various platforms and devices – including linear, TV, and digital channels – is essential for identifying the channels that drive revenue for your businesses. Converged TV and digital streaming enable you to control ad frequency across all channels, enhancing the cross-screen experience. This convergence paves the way for a more comprehensive and holistic future in advertising. Here are three ways TV attribution impacts cross-channel media. Identify the most effective channels TV attribution offers a significant advantage in determining the channels that generate the most conversions. By using this data, you can make informed choices about budget allocation to achieve maximum impact. Deliver a seamless customer experience Consumers demand consistency in their brand interactions. TV attribution can help you by guiding the optimal timing and placement of ads, resulting in a more seamless viewing experience. This synchronization can significantly enhance customer loyalty and retention. Enhance marketing effectiveness By identifying the most effective channels and refining campaign strategies, TV attribution can significantly improve the success of marketing campaigns. The outcome is a measurable increase in sales and revenue, demonstrating the impact of informed and data-driven advertising. Audience-based targeting across linear and digital ecosystems It's crucial to comprehend and connect with the appropriate audience. The emergence of linear and digital platforms has required the development of audience targeting. Across these two ecosystems, audience-based targeting aims to enhance this process by concentrating on specific audience segments rather than general demographics or programming. Benefits of audience-based targeting There are four key benefits of audience-based targeting across the TV ecosystem. Personalization at scale Digital platforms have conditioned users to expect tailored experiences. Audience-based targeting ensures ads resonate with individual preferences and behaviors, even within the vastness of linear TV. Combining data from both linear and digital sources makes it possible to segment audiences more precisely. This results in advertising content tailored to each individual, making it more relevant and personalized. Optimized ad spend Improve your return on investment by targeting specific audience segments more likely to convert, ensuring your messages reach suitable viewers. In contrast to traditional TV purchasing, where advertisement slots are bought based on a show's overall demographic, audience-based targeting focuses on the viewers' behavior and interests, regardless of the program they are watching. Unified measurement and analytics When combining traditional and digital methods of reaching target audiences, it is essential to have a consistent approach to measuring success. By doing this, you can gain insight into how well your ad campaigns perform across different platforms and the frequency with which they are being seen. By comprehensively understanding audiences within different ecosystems, you can adjust your strategies in real time, guaranteeing that your campaigns remain flexible and successful. Enhancing the viewer experience Audience-based targeting benefits viewers by reducing the number of irrelevant ads they see. As a result, viewers can have a more pleasant experience while watching content, which may discourage them from skipping ads and increase their engagement with the content. Future-proofing and safeguarding data Businesses are focusing on future-proofing for data privacy, and safeguarding individual data is becoming more significant than ever before. Now’s the time to embrace new methods that protect your data privacy while ensuring that measurement remains accurate. Experian offers privacy-safe solutions to help businesses preserve precise measurement, even with fewer cookies. "What we're working toward is future-proofing ourselves. To do that, we work with partners like Experian who are already thinking forward, and with your pixel technology, we can capture and resolve the identifiers that we know will be around for a while."Dan Hickox, VP, Solutions Consulting, Development & Partnerships, 605 How Experian and 605 work together 605 is an independent TV measurement and analytics company providing solutions for advertising, content measurement, attribution, planning, optimization, and media transactions. “We partner with great identity partners, such as Experian, that really help us act as the connecting glue across different data touch points. So what it really is, is the ability to have holistic measurement across the different channels, across the different audiences and it starts out with the ability to be able to take disparate data sources and match them together.”Dan Hickox, VP, Solutions Consulting, Development & Partnerships, 605 605 and Experian have a strong partnership that enables 605 to enhance its data through Experian’s Consumer Sync and Pixel solutions. Consumer Sync – 605 utilizes Experian’s Consumer Sync to ensure their data is privacy-compliant and deterministic across all sources. Experian identity organizes people into households, links their digital devices and IDs to them, enriches their identity with behavioral attributes, and then makes this data actionable in any environment, all while maintaining consumer privacy and data regulations. Web Pixel Attribution – 605 utilizes Experian’s pixel solutions to generate web pixel attribution reports on a client-by-client basis – for linear, TV, and cross-platform reporting. 605’s reporting capabilities allow customers to understand their marketing campaigns' true impact and precisely identify high-performing strategies. With the Experian pixel, partners like 605 can learn more about anonymous website visitors by linking associated demographics and behavior attributes, build audience segments based on the highest cart value customers, and more. The 605 and Experian partnership work hand in hand to make linear TV as actionable as digital media for you. Customers can prove the effectiveness of their marketing tactics and gain actionable insights to deliver highly impactful campaigns. Watch the full Q&A Visit our Ask the Expert content hub to watch Dan and Chris's full conversation about TV measurement, data analytics, privacy regulations, and the evolving landscape of TV advertising in the digital age. Contact us About our experts Dan Hickox, VP, Solutions Consulting, Development & Partnerships, 605 As the Vice President of the Solutions Consulting team, Dan collaborates with sellers to turn prospective opportunities into long-term client relationships. He leads new initiatives and drives partnerships that expand 605 capabilities and improve marketplace positioning. Dan brings over a decade of cross-channel media experience in advanced analytics, media optimization, data integration and statistical analysis to 605. Chris Feo, SVP, Sales & Partnerships, Experian As SVP of Sales & Partnerships, Chris has over a decade of experience across identity, data, and programmatic. Chris joined Experian during the Tapad acquisition in November 2020. He joined Tapad with less than 10 employees and has been part of the executive team through both the Telenor and Experian acquisitions. He’s an active advisor, board member, and investor within the AdTech ecosystem. Outside of work, he’s a die-hard golfer, frequent traveler, and husband to his wife, two dogs, and two goats! Latest posts

Over the last few months, Experian has released new syndicated audiences to most major platforms supporting retail and travel. In this blog post, we’ll highlight some of these new audiences and how they can be used with other data from Experian to build the perfect audience to reach your customers and prospects. What separates Experian's syndicated audiences Experian’s 2,400+ syndicated audiences are available directly on over 30 leading television, social, programmatic advertising platforms, and directly within Audigent for activation within private marketplaces (PMPs). Reach consumers based on who they are, where they live, and their household makeup. Experian ranked #1 in accuracy by Truthset for key demographic attributes. Access to unique audiences through Experian’s Partner Audiences available on Experian’s data marketplace, within Audigent for activation in PMPs and directly on platforms like DirectTV, Dish, Magnite, OpenAP, and The Trade Desk. Household Expenditure audiences We’ve created new predictive audiences to help retailers reach consumers across 35 categories likely to spend within that category. A few categories include Apparel, DIY, Health, and more. With the launch of these new audiences, we will retire our existing Household Consumer Expenditure, Online and Retail category audiences in the November Digital Master update. Who these audiences are for Our Household Expenditure audiences use data from multiple sources, providing brands with highly accurate purchase predictions and data that scales for digital execution. Household Expenditure audiences are an excellent solution for brands with new product lines or where targeting based on historical purchases lack signal brands seek. Building data from multiple data sources helps ensure high performance and accuracy and can illuminate trends in consumer shopping patterns. These trends can be used to help predict future shopping behaviors. How to refine our Household Expenditure audiences To refine your audience, you can combine this data with Experian’s demographic and household expenditure audiences to ensure you are reaching consumers. For example, suppose you’re an apparel brand launching a new line aimed toward women over the age of 40. In that case, you can use Experian’s demographic data to reach those women and layer in our household expenditure purchase predictor segment for women's apparel to reach their new target audience. Mobile Location audiences We’ve expanded our location database to include more locations and points of interest. With this new data, we could strengthen our existing mobile location audiences to broaden the reach, improve accuracy, and increase performance. We’ve created 11 new mobile location audiences with our new dataset that supports the retail and travel verticals. These new audiences include new shopping behaviors, including high-income and high-end shoppers and travel and entertainment behaviors, including visiting sporting arenas like MLB, NBA, NFL, and university stadiums. Who these audiences are for These audiences are for brands that want to reach consumers based on their location behaviors. Often valid for retail, travel, and entertainment brands, Mobile Location audiences provide brands with highly accurate data that shows previous intent and interest in critical locations. How to refine our Mobile Location audiences To refine your audience, you can combine your Mobile Location audience with Lifestyle and Interest data. For example, if you are creating an advertising campaign for a hotel near a university stadium for the largest game in the season, you could combine university stadium visitors with sports enthusiasts and in-market for travel to find consumers most likely to be interested in your campaign and staying at the hotel. Purchase-Based Transaction audiences For use cases where predictive audiences aren’t the best fit to reach the right consumer, such as targeting consumer’s historical purchases, we’ve created new purchase-based transaction audiences that utilize opt-in consumer transaction data across 29 retail categories, including apparel, home, lifestyle, health, food and beverage, and more. Who these audiences are for These audiences are a perfect fit for brands trying to reach consumers based on previous purchases. These audiences can be broken out by their spending patterns – frequency of purchase and high spenders – and their response to advertising, including direct mail, email, inserts, and digital. How to refine our Purchase-Based Transaction audiences Combine these new audiences with Mosaic to fine-tune your audience based on their purchasing and lifestyle patterns. Suppose you are a brand with a new line of home décor products launching and will utilize influencers to endorse your product line. In that case, you can use Experian’s purchase-based transaction audiences for high spenders in home décor and layer our Mosaic audience Influenced by Influencers to find consumers who are most likely to purchase and trust an influencer. We can help you discover and activate your perfect audience Our audiences are available in most major data and execution platforms. Visit our partner page for more information. Don’t see our audiences on your platform of choice? We can help you build and activate an Experian audience on the platform of your choice. Contact us Latest posts

The AdTech industry is buzzing with discussions about cookie deprecation and effective strategies to tackle it. One of the commonly suggested solutions is the utilization of clean rooms alongside responsibly sourced first-party data. Above all else, the industry recognizes the importance of respecting consumer data and complying with all privacy laws. Additionally, the industry acknowledges the need for a change in our historical practices. This shift benefits everyone involved, as consumer data is more secure than ever. Tremendous investments have been made to ensure the utmost security of consumer information. Clean rooms are one of the tools that enable companies to use data securely, ensuring the content that you see is as relevant as possible. Two ways the AdTech industry is addressing cookie deprecation The days of sending data directly to partners for usage or for using only third-party data for marketing efforts are gone. Now, the emphasis is on responsibly collecting first-party data and using clean rooms to enrich first-party data to enhance marketing efforts. First-party data The industry is starting to lean into first-party data gained through transparent means. This valuable information provides organizations with deeper insights into their customers, allowing for more personalized and effective interactions. By embracing the power of first-party data, either on its own or enriched via partner collaboration, you can cultivate stronger relationships, build trust, and deliver tailored experiences that resonate with your customers on a deeper level. Clean rooms Many data lakes and warehouses offer this service, ensuring their clients can not only store their data with them but can connect it with other partners in a secure environment and extract more information through the combined data sets versus their data on its own. Brands and their partners recognize that they need to work together, and a clean room provides a secure environment to share their first-party data without exposing their sensitive data to their partner. So, while we're losing third-party cookies, brands and partners can still get value from first-party data by using a clean room to generate audience insights, segmentation strategies, personalized experiences and offers, media plans, and measurement and attribution. Three ways data clean rooms can improve Data clean rooms are a great way to facilitate data collaboration while ensuring sensitive data is not exposed. Data clean rooms are not yet easy to use nor are they inexpensive. They require investment, both financially and resource allocation-wise, and you are not guaranteed to yield great match results. Let’s dive into three areas for data clean room improvement. High cost According to the IAB's State of Data 2023, nearly two-thirds of data clean room users spent at least $200K on the technology in 2022. In addition, one-third of data clean room users expect the price of data clean rooms to rise in 2023. The high cost of this solution can make it inaccessible to smaller companies in the advertising space. Resource intensive Nearly half of the companies using data clean rooms have a team of six or more dedicated to the technology, according to the IAB’s State of Data 2023, while nearly a third of companies using data clean rooms have 11 or more employees focused on the technology. Data clean rooms are not turnkey solutions. Inefficient matching Even if companies are using clean rooms does not mean that they are automatically going to achieve great success. Identity fragmentation, data hygiene, and differing identifiers can suppress client match rates in clean rooms, leading to significant investment and a lackluster output. How to get the most return on your clean room investment The finish line for data collaboration in clean rooms is not just having a relationship with a clean room. Instead, you should incorporate an identity resolution solution in your clean room. By adding an identity solution to your clean room, you can: Resolve and match all your identity data, regardless of the identity data that you or your partner have, giving you a larger data foundation to analyze. Generate more valuable insights and information, leading to a better experience for your customers. Join data sets to create smarter activation and targeting strategies and produce more holistic measurement. Experian can help you get started with identity resolution and data clean rooms If you are investing in data clean rooms, that means you are committed to the best in data practices. Experian recommends going the extra step and that you also invest in finding an identity resolution solution. By doing this, you can see better match rates. Experian offers this capability and has existing relationships with three clean room partners, Amazon Web Services, InfoSum, and Snowflake. In addition to collaborating in clean rooms, we offer collaboration in two other secure environments. Contact us today to discuss how we enable identity resolution in clean rooms or to chat about our other collaboration capabilities. Get in touch Latest posts
FAQs
TV measurement is the process of tracking how viewers consume content across linear, streaming, and connected TV (CTV), and connecting those impressions to advertising outcomes.
TV measurement is built for advertisers, agencies, media owners, and platforms that need to understand reach, frequency, and ROI across fragmented TV and digital ecosystems.
There are panel-based providers (like Nielsen and Comscore), ACR-based providers (like iSpot.TV, Samba TV, and TVision), and hybrid or identity-based approaches that unify signals across channels.
Many rely on diverse data sources (set-top boxes, smart TVs, streaming platforms) and identity graphs to improve match rates, reduce duplication, and deliver a more complete view of audiences.
Yes. Leading providers, including Experian, build privacy and compliance into their solutions.
Experian uniquely combines offline and digital data within its identity graph, enabling precise ID resolution, cross-channel attribution, and outcome-based measurement that connects media spend to real actions.
You can explore Experian’s measurement solutions or connect with an Experian expert for a personalized walkthrough.