NEW YORK—Nielsen has announced that its "always on" Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) will now measure YouTube video ad campaigns.
The move expands Nielsen's coverage of YouTube and YouTube TV in DAR and will provide advertisers and agencies with the data needed to better understand reach, manage frequency and prove the efficacy of media buys across desktop, mobile and connected TV (CTV), Nielsen said.
The "always on" measurement also expands visibility into a campaign's performance, leveraging data to drive more efficient media plans and, ultimately, a higher return on investment, the company added.
"By enabling continuous 'always on' measurement on YouTube, we're helping advertisers to get a better understanding of one of the leading and largest ad supported platforms," said Kim Gilberti, senior vice president, product management, Nielsen. "By achieving true cross-channel comparability, this marks an important milestone in Nielsen's steady march toward delivering Nielsen ONE, which will provide a comparable, deduplicated view into the channels and platforms all audiences consume, across all screens."
In announcing the move, Nielsen explained that delivering the right ad to the right audience has been a challenge for advertisers and publishers.
Continuous, "always on" measurement on YouTube simplifies campaign measurement by eliminating the need for advertisers and agencies to manually tag or enable campaigns. Marketers who enable "always on" DAR will have more impressions data to improve the ability to deliver ads to desired audiences, understand reach and manage frequency, and better understand the audience that sees the advertisement, Nielsen said.
The launch builds on Nielsen's work in the digital ad space with YouTube, following the YouTube CTV in Digital Ad Ratings launch in 2020, the YouTube TV CTV co-viewing launch in April 2022, and Nielsen Four-Screen Ad Deduplication launch in July 2022.
These announcements are also significant steps in the path to Nielsen ONE, the forthcoming cross-media measurement platform launching in December 2022, Nielsen said.
