• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, September 17, 2010

TRA, the research company that seeks to offer insight into how specific ad viewing leads to purchasing, will expand its measurement initiatives beyond the consumer packaged-goods category into the auto and other sectors.

TRA will use set-top-box data to track viewing and marry it with information from Experian Marketing Services on auto buying and activity in movie attendance, quick-service restaurants, wireless carriers and financial-services segments. Included would be drilling down to the demo and lifestyle levels.

The company promises a "single-source" metric in the consumer packaged-goods category, allowing for close to real-time data on a link between viewing and purchasing. In the new categories, it looks at past behavior for results that can help advertisers with targeting.

In this space, TRA culls anonymous data from set-top boxes in 1.5 million homes and matches that up with shopping-card information from 54 million homes, gaining insight into the viewing-buying behavior connection for 370,000 households. The set-top-box data includes live and time-shifted viewing, which has particular relevance in helping determine an ad's effectiveness if it were fast-forwarded through.

The 2-year-old TRA bills its "single source" service as helpful in ROI measurement for marketers and programmers; it counts CBS and MediaVest as clients.

Investors in TRA include WPP, Arbitron and Intel Capital.