Common Linear and Digital Metrics for TV

The realm of TV advertising includes traditional broadcast and digital options, including CTV. Advertisers allocate spend to both, and they are becoming increasingly frustrated about the lack of common linear and digital metrics. In fact, it was the leading challenge they cited in integrating linear and digital campaigns.

The desire for standardization aligns with the trend toward converged TV, which combines all ad types related to TV — linear, CTV, digital video and O&O (owned and operated). CTV is the fastest-growing format, but the absence of standard metrics across the ecosystem remains a pain point. It makes for an uneven and inaccurate way to compare performance.

As challenges persist, what steps can broadcast TV take to ease advertiser concerns?

Integrating Linear and Digital TV Campaigns

Advertisers realize the benefits of campaigns that incorporate linear and digital spots. They must follow where the viewers go. Streaming is winning big in viewership with record numbers, while broadcast TV is declining. Advertisers are shifting dollars as the number of cord-cutters increases and traditional subscribers decreases. It doesn’t mean linear TV is out of the picture. The outlook for 2024 is that it will be an impressive year for ad revenue for broadcast TV, fueled by political spending. The primary thing to consider is that companies want to diversify where ads play to ensure they can have the greatest reach with linear and targeting with digital.

The integration of converged TV has challenges, as identified in a recent Yahoo Advertising study. Key findings for challenges include:

53% of respondents said a lack of common metrics was the biggest problem.
41% said it was creating a holistic framework for planning and measuring.
40% cited data-sharing restrictions due to walled gardens.

The report also found that 90% of advertisers said managing linear and digital in a single solution was essential. It further corroborates the desire for converged TV buying; for local TV, it remains a challenge.

Moving Toward Converged TV Sales Can Help with Visibility for Linear and Digital Metrics

To satisfy advertisers and modernize how you sell spots, you need the right technology. Being able to present all the options for linear and digital in one proposal and execution will be a significant step in greater visibility of metrics. Problems remain with analyzing the results of those metrics since linear and digital still live in measurement silos. The key area requiring resolution is the future of audience measurement. One option for standardizing would for linear TV ads sales to be by impressions vs. ratings.

The recently introduced Nielsen One promises cross-platform metric and measurement coverage. It’s still a work in progress, only launched earlier this year. The first module focuses on campaign measurement, with more data points coming soon.

If metrics can become more compatible and easier to decipher, advertisers will be able to adapt to converged TV fully. However, you’ll still need technology that covers the sales process, provides automation capabilities and capitalizes on data.

With a comprehensive platform that blends all the options for TV, you get the functionality you need to deliver for advertisers. Such a solution is coming closer to reality as technology leaders seek to close the gaps. TV has seen some of the most significant changes in the last few years, driven by consumer behavior. With advertisers demanding common metrics for linear and digital, the industry has to step up to meet these, and technology that consolidates and integrates will be critical.