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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

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Tapad, a part of Experian, experiences record growth following increased investment in identity resolution

Sixty-Nine Percent Organic Sales Growth Spurred by Expanded Business and Continued Investment in The Tapad Graph™ NEW YORK, May 7, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, a part of Experian, a global leader in digital identity resolution, today announced a record start to the year, following its highest earning year in the company's history. Since January, Tapad has experienced a 69 percent organic increase in global revenue; with strategic investments in talent, continued high retention rates, and an expanded range of clients across global markets. Globally, Tapad increased its client base across multiple categories and verticals, catering to agencies, brands, telecoms, and data providers. The Tapad Graph™'s varied use cases and differentiated global scale have been instrumental to the company's overall success to-date. With an ongoing investment in product, and expected feature releases slated for 2019, the company anticipates these accomplishments to continue. "Since the inception of our business, Tapad has heavily focused on enabling marketers to boost the performance of their campaigns with the help of our advanced digital identity resolution technologies," said Sigvart Voss Eriksen, CEO at Tapad. "While we continue to grow, creating privacy-safe solutions that solve marketers evolving needs remains integral to our evolution. As pioneers in cross-device, we're constantly innovating and pushing ourselves to be at the forefront of industry change. Our leadership in the space is recognized across the industry, as is evident by our current success." In addition to partner expansions, Tapad also invested in new talent. In February, Tapad announced Ajit Thupil as the company's first Senior Vice President of Identity, deepening the company's commitment to creating ground-breaking digital identity resolution products for brands, agencies and platforms. Tapad's investment in talent has been recognized by One World Identity's 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award and by ClickZ's 2019 Marketing Technology Awards. "At Tapad, our focus is on continuously advancing our digital identity resolution products to cater to the needs of marketers across industries," said Chris Feo, SVP of Global Data Licensing and Strategic Partnerships at Tapad. "As a part of that commitment, we are consistently growing our partner base, product features, and widening our reach on a global scale. We're excited to sustain our growth throughout 2019." To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution products, visit Experian.com Open job opportunities across the globe can be found on Tapad's career page here: https://www.experian.com/careers/ About Tapad Tapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph™, and related solutions, provide a privacy-safe approach to connecting device identifiers to brand and marketer data, thereby allowing marketers around the world to maximize campaign effectiveness. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its innovation, growth and workplace culture, and has earned numerous awards, including the TMCnet Tech Culture Award. Based in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore and Tokyo, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Telenor Group. Contact us today

May 07,2019 by Experian Marketing Services

ExchangeWire: 2018 IAB UK & PwC digital adspend study: The Market Grows

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This is no doubt down to bigger mobile screens, better 4G and more readily available WiFi making video ads an increasingly attractive option. “Across the board, advertisers are investing in digital for longer-term brand building as well as short-term activation, with the direct-to-consumer market helping to drive this trend. 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As spend increases, it’s important to look at how media buying can be made as efficient as possible, minimising waste and maximising the return on investment. “Marketers will start to look to new technologies, like AI, to offer an impartial and more efficient approach to media buying, allowing marketers to measure effectiveness of campaigns and allocate spend accordingly.” Carl Erik Kjaersgaard, Chief Executive, Blackwood Seven Industry going from strength to strength “This significant growth in ad spend is great to see and shows that our industry is going from strength to strength. It’s especially good to see that as advertisers invest more and more in digital advertising, they’re becoming more considered in where they’re spending their money – with a large portion of the growth coming from companies that are part of IAB’s Gold Standard. “At The Trade Desk, we’ve long been ambassadors for the importance of transparency. 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As a result, the lines across search, social, and e-commerce are more blurred than ever with the introduction of features like Checkout for Instagram and Shopping ads on Google Images. Furthermore, with the rapid growth of Amazon’s ads business, e-commerce has quickly emerged as a third pillar of digital advertising, making it vital for marketers to have a complete view of the customer journey across channels and devices, if they hope to more accurately understand campaign performance and attribution.” Wesley MacLaggan, SVP of Marketing, Marin Software Digital identity resolution essential in understanding customer journey “Last year’s figures show that UK ad spend is starting to mirror the behaviour of consumers who, according to UKOM data, spend two-thirds of their time online on a smartphone. 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May 06,2019 by Experian Marketing Services

AdWeek: OpenX debuts people-based marketing tool for the open web

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May 06,2019 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.

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