• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, March 26, 2015

Neustar this week announced it has partnered with Nielsen to integrate Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings data -- formerly known as Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) -- into its marketing platform. Neustar has also integrated Nielsen viewability data into its platform.

The integration beefs up Neustar’s pool of audience data, which it claims will allow marketers to more accurately reach their intended targets. The deal also gives Neustar a layer of third-party data it can use to validate whether certain audiences were reached.

“The core of the data includes unique audience, reach, frequency and gross rating points (GRPs) for every campaign we run with Nielsen tags across digital platforms, including desktop, smartphones and tablets,” a Neustar representative explained. “Views are broken down by demographic (including, age and gender demographic information from Nielsen), publisher and placement, as well as designated market area (DMA).”

The integration is purely digital-focused: None of Nielsen’s TV audience data is included in the partnership.

Both Neustar and Nielsen have acquired data management platforms (DMP) in the past two years -- Neustar bought Aggregate Knowledge in 2013 and Nielsen purchased eXelate earlier this month. And while financial terms of this Neustar-Nielsen integration were not disclosed, the partnership suggests that Nielsen is maintaining a certain level of neutrality in the digital audience data space despite having its own investment in the space by virtue of its eXelate acquisition.