iSpot said it can now provide media buyers and advertisers with the age and sex demographic information used for transactions in addition to its measurement of cross-screen audiences and business outcomes.
Co-viewing information is also part of iSpot’s new capabilities.
While media planners are increasing building campaigns based on specific target audiences--such as truck buyers--most deals are still done based on which age bracket the viewers are in and whether they’re male or female.
Related: iSpot Measuring Addressable ads under Project OAR Specs
Being able to apply the same age and demo information used for buying linear to the fast-growing connected TV ad market should help media buyers shift dollars to CTV, according to iSpot CEO Sean Muller.
Related: Nielsen Sets Major Changes in Program, Ad Measurement
Ratings leader Nielsen this week announced its plan to offer a unified ratings system called Nielsen One that offers cross-platform ratings for content and impress-level date for individual commercials. Nielsen will roll out its product in the fourth quarter of 2022.
iSpot gets household viewing information from a large-scale panel of millions of Vizio smart sets. It’s using data from Epsilon to identify who is in particular households and is working with TVision to figure out which member of the household is watching programming on a particular device.
As more consumers stream video content, the ad industry is looking for comparable ways to measure over-the-top viewing and traditional linear TV.
“We’ve been doing unified cross-screen measurement for years,” said Muller. “Really what’s new right now is the introduction of person level measurement across both linear and streaming.”
Muller noted that ads on both linear TV and streaming are still bought based on age and gender demographics.
“What the industry needs is one simple system that can count all that across linear and streaming using the traditional age and gender system, but then connecting it to outcomes,” he said. “That’s what iSpot’s able to do that nobody else can do today.”
Most of the spending on connected TV and streaming is coming from TV budgets and TV buyers and not from digital ad budgets. With linear ratings down, advertisers are looking to follow consumers to streaming platforms. “That is why this release is so critical for dollars to flow between linear and CTV,” Muller said.
The person-level reporting is integrated into iSpot’s measurement offering inside the platforms of measurement partners such as The Trade Desk, which brands can purchase with campaigns on a cost per thousand (CPM) basis to verify the incremental reach provided by CTV investments across TTD’s portfolio. The measurement capability also is powering TV ad insights for Neustar, Oracle’s Moat, OpenAP and Cox Media’s Gamut.
Related: Apollo's Gamut to Use iSpot Unified Measurement
“Because we were using measurements that spanned OTT and linear, we could analyze how responses compared side-by-side,” said Diana Boyles, VP of marketing at HomeAdvisor, which has used iSpot's new capabilities. “We learned that when someone sees a linear and OTT ad, there is a greater likelihood of responding. Moreover, we saw that people exposed only to OTT ads were very likely to convert. We were able to prove that we were reaching a net new audience for our brand that was performing very well. Last year we tested seven new streaming partners using iSpot Unified Measurement, and ended up more than doubling our spend on streaming.”
