Loading...

TV measurement 2024: Navigating identity, impressions, and interoperability

Published: April 16, 2024 by Experian Marketing Services

2024 TV measurement trends: What marketers should know

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.

Connect with us today

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.


Latest posts

Loading…
CES 2023: Clean rooms, activation, and more

Experian kicks off the AdTech year at CES  What better way to jump-start start 2023 than a trip to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Our team was thrilled to participate in this annual kick-off with the AdTech community. The uniqueness of what CES has become for our industry can be defined as the intersection between technology brands, digital, television, and AdTech. CES creates the space necessary for marketing and advertising leaders to collaborate to drive rewarding outcomes for the year ahead.  Our goal in attending CES was to connect with our partners, clients, and industry leaders to build relationships, form strategic plans, and listen. The opportunity to learn about our industry’s challenges and goals enables us to develop initiatives, drive success, and support our clients and partners.  Keep reading for our 2023 CES AdTech recap. “I have been to CES too many times to mention the number; this year was as energetic, collaborative, engaged, and effective as I can ever recall. Our presence was first-class and meticulously organized, which made our interactions as robust as possible. It's a team effort, and we appreciate all the work that goes into this event. “ – Greg Koerner, Vice President of Digital Advertising Sales Our CES AdTech recap  Supporting publishers and advertisers is top of mind for us. Many of our conversations focused on the technologies we deliver or collaborate with our partners to provide.   Clean rooms and activation were two common themes throughout our discussions.  Clean rooms  Consumer privacy, regulatory requirements, and data deprecation are driving the AdTech industry to talk about and explore clean rooms. There’s a need to address data collection, storage, analysis, and sharing. Clean rooms are a potential solution that can standardize data and address interoperability issues.  Activation  In 2023, we predict that digital activation will increase. We continue to see increased demand for environments where alternative identifiers are being transacted (like demand side platforms and video). Social platforms will continue to experience volatility and advertisers will shift their focus to demand-side, video, and supply-side platforms. Download our 2023 Digital audience trends and predictions report to learn where you should activate your audiences in 2023. We can help plan your 2023 digital activation strategy.  How we support clean rooms and activation  Our Consumer Sync and Consumer View products support these areas and can help you understand people better–so you and your customers can connect with confidence.  What is Consumer Sync?  Consumer Sync, our consumer identity product, enables signal agnostic collaboration across marketers and technologies, bringing together digital devices, IDs, households, and attributes. Consumer Sync’s Resolution and Collaboration solutions can help you gain a better understanding of your consumers and make identities actionable in any environment.   What is Consumer View?  Consumer View, our data discovery product, offers marketers a robust, privacy-first understanding of their customers and prospects. Grounded in consumer identity, Consumer View provides the data foundation to engage consumers where, when, and how they want. Consumer View’s Audience and Attribution solutions provide expansive coverage so that you can fill in the gaps to better understand your prospects.  Additionally, our collaborative efforts with strong partnerships across the clean room ecosystem and with our activation partners help our clients serve the best ads, at the best times, to the right audience.     “CES is back and was a great way to kick off the new year! We were able to meet with a high volume of clients to eagerly talk about building new solutions for the TV space. We are excited to see where these conversations lead in the next few months.” – Ali Mack, Senior Director of TV Advertising Sales  Let’s navigate what’s new in our industry, together  We can help you connect with your consumers in innovative, impactful ways. Contact us to continue the conversation and learn more about our Consumer Sync and Consumer View products. We can help you take advantage of the opportunities on the horizon.  Get in touch

Jan 17,2023 by Experian Marketing Services

Easily align your audience buying with consumers’ media usage habits

Tap into our collaboration with ARF’s DASH study for one-of-a-kind TV audiences Understanding the importance of aligning campaigns with the media usage habits of consumers, Experian Marketing Services has partnered with The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) and its DASH (Device and Account Sharing) universe study to create an innovative solution for marketers and advertisers.     A leading industry organization dedicated to furthering the scientific practice of advertising and marketing, the ARF conducts independent research and assists in establishing rigorous standards of practice. Its 400+ members include leading marketers, media companies, advertising agencies, and research and measurement firms. What does DASH data reveal? The ARF’s DASH study was developed with National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and seven industry sponsors, including Experian. DASH measures, in granular detail, how American households and individuals connect to and consume TV, use digital devices, and interact with and share streaming media and eCommerce accounts. DASH also contains a cohort of repeat respondents to uncover the dynamics of complex media actions, such as cord cutting.   DASH produces an unbiased, nationally projectable data set, which, when combined with Experian's Marketing Data enables the creation of one-of-a-kind audience segments based on TV, media, and device usage at scale. In addition, pairing DASH data with Experian Marketing Data yields insights for industry partners that unlock how consumers engage with media and technology across their devices and eCommerce accounts.  How do we make DASH audiences – and why? By combining the ARF’s DASH data set with Experian Marketing Data, we developed one-of-a-kind TV audiences that reflect how viewers interact with digital devices and eCommerce accounts. We have created this resource so our customers can align their marketing campaigns with media usage. These audience segments also yield insights that help marketers reach their audiences with the right messages and content. “Television viewing behavior has undergone a massive transformation, making it challenging for advertisers to reach their target audience and optimize frequency. These audiences give advertisers invaluable tools for managing their campaigns in an increasingly fragmented environment.” – Doug McLennan, Director of Product Management, Experian   Explore our DASH audiences to advance your digital and TV ad campaign strategy TV usage and viewing behavior audiences   These audience segments allow marketers to reach unique and targeted viewers, like frequent streamers or those who watch exclusively on larger screens.      Ad Avoiders    Ad Acceptors      Household/Family Viewing – Co-Watchers      Household/Family Viewing – Co-Watchers with Children      Household/Family Viewing – Co-Watchers without Children      Household/Family Viewing – Solo Watchers      TV Enthusiasts – Paid TV High Spenders      Viewing Device Type – Screen Size – Small      Viewing Device Type – Screen Size – Large     With our new TV audiences, you can target viewers with precision, accuracy, and confidence, enabling you to maximize your marketing efforts.  We are excited to offer these new segments and look forward to continuing our work with the ARF to develop new resources that help you connect with your target audiences.  “DASH has established itself as a reliable and unbiased calibration set – a “true North” – for media measurement. Our collaboration with Experian puts the power and precision of DASH in the hands of marketers and advertisers as well.” – Paul Donato, Chief Research Officer, ARF Our DASH audiences can be found on the shelf in your demand-side platform of choice for easy accessibility, with availability across all offline and online channels. Connect with us to learn more.     For more information on our partner ARF,  visit www.thearf.org.  Get in touch

Dec 27,2022 by Experian Marketing Services

Best digital audience strategies for 2023

2022 was a year of adjustment. Consumers adjusted to a post-pandemic world and returned to pre-pandemic shopping behaviors. Consumers adjusted their budgets as the price of goods skyrocketed, as a result of high inflation. To combat inflation, the U.S. Federal Reserve adjusted interest rates. This further restricted consumer buying power. The AdTech ecosystem also experienced adjustments. Google adjusted the date of cookie deprecation. Federal legislation forced technology companies to adjust their consumer privacy practices. Marketers and advertisers adjusted how they address interoperability issues by investing in clean room solutions. This year of adjustment makes it harder to predict where consumers will spend and how marketers should plan their digital audience strategies.   What will 2023 bring to AdTech? Download our 2023 AdTech trends and predictions report to access our forecast to help you plan for 2023. Our report will answer:    How has digital activation changed over the last four years?    What are the top advertising platforms?    Which digital audiences are advertisers buying?   Do digital audience strategies vary by vertical?   Our AdTech trends forecast    In 2023, digital activation will increase. Digital audience activation continues to grow at a significant rate despite market shocks like the pandemic, inflation, and higher interest rates.   Given the current economic uncertainty, we predict that marketers will look toward tried and true channels where they are confident they will have quality audiences, inventory, and be able to drive ROI.  What will digital activation look like in 2023?   Between 2018-2021, digital audience activation increased annually by 46%. Using projected 2022 results, between 2018-2022, it will increase annually by 34%. We anticipate continued growth in 2023.  Top advertising platforms in 2023   2023 will see increased digital activation, but which platforms will advertisers use to serve their ads?   Advertisers will shift their focus to demand-side, video, and supply-side platforms.  Social media platforms will continue to experience volatility.   Advertisers will place bigger bets on the combination of addressable and CTV.  Our report will also reveal which platforms are creating a path toward a post-cookie future and where data-sharing relationships will become the strongest.  The most popular advertiser audiences trending now in AdTech   Which digital audiences are advertisers buying?   Demographics    Modeled Lifestyles   Behavioral  Custom Audiences   Traditional targeting methods like Demographics and Modeled Lifestyles are the baseline of many marketing strategies. We predict that we will continue to see marketers activate against these data sets.  Digital audience strategies by vertical  Digital audience strategies vary by vertical. Download our report to uncover the digital audiences purchased by advertisers in the following industries:   Financial Services   Health   Retail & CPG   Technology & Communication   Download our new 2025 Digital trends and predictions report Marketers, agencies, and platforms are facing new challenges as privacy regulations evolve, AI technology advances, and consumer behaviors shift. Our latest report highlights actionable strategies for navigating these changes and improving how you connect with audiences, measure impact, and deliver results. What you’ll learn Navigating signal loss: Explore the rise of alternative IDs and contextual targeting as privacy regulations and signal loss reshape data-driven advertising.  Connected TV (CTV): Understand the growth of connected TV (CTV), the importance of frequency capping, and strategies for effective audience activation.  Omnichannel campaigns: Learn how marketers are moving from channel-specific strategies to audience-led omnichannel campaigns that tell a more cohesive story. Retail media networks: Learn how retail media networks (RMNs) are capitalizing on enriched first-party data to learn more about their customers and reach them across on-site and off-site inventory.  Curation: Examine how curation is transforming programmatic campaigns by combining audience, contextual, and supply chain signals to deliver premium inventory packages that maximize addressability, efficiency, and performance. Download now Get in touch

Dec 20,2022 by Experian Marketing Services


FAQs

What is TV measurement?

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.

Who is TV measurement designed for? 

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.

What types of TV measurement solutions exist today?

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.

How do alternative providers ensure accuracy and performance?

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.

Is TV measurement privacy-compliant? 

Yes. Leading providers, including Experian, build privacy and compliance into their solutions. 

What makes Experian’s approach different from other providers? 

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.

Where can I learn more or get started?

You can explore Experian’s measurement solutions or connect with an Experian expert for a personalized walkthrough.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Enter your name and email for the latest updates

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

About Experian Marketing Services

At Experian Marketing Services, we use data and insights to help brands have more meaningful interactions with people. As leaders in the evolution of the advertising landscape, Experian Marketing Services can help you identify your customers and the right potential customers, uncover the most appropriate communication channels, develop messages that resonate, and measure the effectiveness of marketing activities and campaigns.

Visit our website

Subscribe to our newsletter

Stay up to date on the latest industry news and receive expert tips from our marketing experts.
Subscribe now!