Nielsen said it will start measuring YouTube’s streaming TV inventory as part of its Digital Ad Ratings and Total Ad Ratings, starting with YouTube TV in the first half of 2021 and adding the YouTube app on connected TVs ahead of the 2021-22 upfront.
With the growth of streaming to about 25% of total TV usage, getting consistent independent measurement of connected TV campaigns has been of growing importance to advertisers and media buyers. Nielsen had been measuring YouTube usage on computers and mobile devices.
Being able to measure YouTube across platforms will allow advertisers to better gauge the effectiveness of their campaigns.
“As streaming through connected devices surges, measuring the audience is critical as the industry demands a currency grade solution that provides marketers and publishers holistic, cross-platform metrics about advanced TV campaigns,” said Scott Brown, GM of audience measurement at Nielsen. “Because connected TV is addressable by nature, expanding our relationship with Google to measure YouTube audiences on connected devices is an important step to deliver cross media ad measurement and comparability between CTV and addressable on linear TV.”
Nielsen said that YouTube accounts for 20% of all streaming usage in the U.S.
"Over 100 million people in the U.S. watch YouTube and YouTube TV on their connected TVs every month. Advertisers are asking for third-party measurement partners like Nielsen to provide a complete view of YouTube and YouTube TV audiences, so they can understand the scale of the audience they're able to reach through CTV campaigns," said Debbie Weinstein, VP, global solutions, at YouTube.
