Cross-Screen Measurement Isn’t the Future; It’s Already Here

The following is republished with the permission of the Association of National Advertisers. Find this and similar articles on ANA Newsstand.

By Christine Grammier

Once upon a time, TV was linear, with a handful of channels, and the standard unit of measurement was the gross rating point (GRP), which dictated advertising costs and set CPMs. The GRP, the only measurement available, reported on age and gender demographic impressions culled from panels. Brands advertising on television relied on it to place their broadcasting spend accordingly.

Fast-forward several decades and some things haven’t changed — linear TV still mostly relies on GRPs, while measuring TV impact on sales is still a challenge. Marketing leaders continue to hold their agencies accountable for TV CPMs rather than using metrics that reflect true consumer reach and sales KPIs.

Meanwhile, digital marketing and its foundation of data has emerged as a platform on which brands can effectively measure and manage reach, engagement, frequency, impressions, and business outcomes almost instantly. Digital media plans are built on multiple types of guarantees and adaptable metrics that reflect a brand’s needs.

The disruption of TV and the decay of linear reach are here. Technology is giving consumers new ways to view TV content far beyond their living room antenna and providing a plethora of data for brands to activate against. Even so, TV ad planning and measurement often live within legacy tools built for that time when TV was linear only. That’s changing.

Cross-screen Measurement Is No Myth

Brands need proper cross-screen measurement for things as basic as reach and frequency. The connection to business outcomes is also a critical need, but the first step toward an adequate cross-measurement metric is getting the data for cross-screen ad exposure in one place, which seems to be a challenge that plagues the industry as a whole.

In fact, brands face a number of challenges that impede both trust in a new measurement system and steps toward changing the status quo. Those challenges include the uncertainty of abandoning a long-used industry metric, incomplete data sets, a lack of historical benchmarks, misaligned sell-side inventory management systems, even the very feasibility of matching identities of people and households across screens.

Despite those challenges — in addition to a pandemic creating uncertainty throughout the industry — cross-screen measurement is no myth. It’s real, it’s doable, and three recent advancements are allowing brands the possibility to unlock its potency: identity, data connectivity, and evolving tools and technologies.

•     Identity. The only way to achieve a consumer’s single view is to ensure a safe, privacy-compliant identity solution that is durable and works across online and offline channels. Without a durable identity, being able to target and measure across channels becomes more guesswork than precise.
•     Data connectivity. Data needs to be connected across many data sources and tied to the right person and household. To get apples-to-apples measurement for demographic and custom audiences alike, data must flow across a neutral, channel-agnostic, privacy-compliant environment.
•     Evolving tools and technologies. The availability and use of multiple data sources, set-top boxes (STB), smart TV automated content recognition (ACR), and impressions from streaming devices connected at the household level and processed at scale has created an open door for new, cross-screen measurement. This new measurement provides an accurate read on reach and frequency across audiences that can be used in customer journey, lift, and attribution analytics. These tools are still maturing but are readily available.

Working together, these three advancements allow for holistic cross-screen measurement that has not been available previously. Identity allows measurement tools to infer exactly who is seeing the advertisement; data connectivity allows for brands to develop, target, and measure consistently across channels; and evolving tools have created the ability to measure with more granularity.

With the upcoming year guaranteed to look nothing like the past, brands and agencies have to test and learn. Based on a review of a large set of Fortune 500 brands’ cross-screen results, here are a few tips to help brands and agencies move quickly into this new world.

CTV/OTT and Linear TV Are Different — Treat Them That Way

While linear TV might be the right place to build the foundation for a TV advertising investment, brand marketers shouldn’t force connected TV/over-the-top (CTV/OTT) into the same framework. Brands cannot expect their agencies to have the perfect cross-screen planning tool today.

Testing cross-screen tactics doesn’t mean abandoning all previous investment decisions or tools. It can be done alongside a traditional linear buy and, in many cases, it can be done with traditionally linear partners.

It’s hard to predict precisely how reach will play out in the coming year, but using targeting to control reach in many CTV/OTT properties can help. Brands and agencies should make decisions today on high-level linear and CTV/OTT investments and then iterate throughout the year to measure their cross-screen impressions, reach, frequency, and business outcomes.

Marketers should remember that using cross-screen measurement requires a different approach than linear TV — CTV/OTT planning should not be forced into a traditional linear TV planning method.

A New Model Means New Metrics

Cross-screen measurement usually shows brands that CPMs are not the best metric to use to hold their agencies accountable, and this new form of measurement gives new metrics to focus on.

As linear TV reach decays and consumer viewership shifts to CTV/OTT, agencies seeking out the lowest CPM for their clients can easily end up with very high-frequency spots in heavy TV viewing households. Implementing cross-screen measurement allows brands and agencies to use new reach/frequency metrics and focus on business outcomes. Brands can measure the optimal frequency levels to drive business outcomes and then focus their agency on delivering CTV/OTT ad spots to the most valuable households for the “Goldilocks effect” — not too many impressions delivering waste but enough impressions to break through and drive results.

To understand how different screens complement each other, TV advertisers will need to get into the market and test, measure, and learn how best to reach their target audiences across multiple devices.

Learn Who the Most Valuable Audiences Are and Bring Them Everywhere

Each brand will have a different audience priority for cross-screen marketing. Some might focus on bringing back customers lost during a shutdown caused by the pandemic; others might focus on driving broad awareness and having clear reach goals. Whatever the goal, using custom audiences to target homes that are getting low levels of exposure to a brand’s linear TV campaigns with reach extensions in CTV/OTT could be the right approach to maximize reach and business impact.

There are so many ways to access premium video inventory in CTV/OTT that it is almost impossible for brands to control targeting and frequency without bringing platforms a set of parameters for targeting a marketer’s defined audience. Brands that bring an audience will find that most platforms can use it in some fashion. Brands can reach audiences in almost any form of CTV/OTT deal, including PMPs (private marketplaces), DSPs (demand-side platforms), SSPs (supply-side platforms), direct CTV/OTT platforms, and network FEP (full episode player) negotiations.

Given the current climate, most advertisers are likely planning to commit a percentage of dollars to “fluidity” guarantees, where advertisers agree to have a portion of their overall guaranteed impressions delivered across multiple, nonlinear screens. This is an opportunity to ask for the flexibility to have those fluidity-guaranteed dollars deliver on their custom audiences.

Opportunities Await

While 2020 continues to dole out new surprises every day, there are a few things marketers can rely on as settled fact: The disruption of TV is here and so is cross-screen measurement.

Though brands will need to look beyond traditional metrics to determine the success of their new TV strategies, following the path of cross-screen measurement will give TV planners and buyers the confidence to sit with their CMOs, CFOs, and digital marketing colleagues to deftly navigate the change and uncertainty of an evolving media landscape.

About Author: Christine Grammier is the head of buy-side TV at LiveRamp, a partner in the ANA Thought Leadership Program.