For advertisers and brands, this means they will be able to more effectively track their campaign across platforms.

“With this new solution, media buyers will have the ability to understand the true total audience of their campaigns,” says Jeremy Straight, senior vice president for strategic partnerships at SpotX. “Qualified buyers that run a CTV campaign on SpotX platform will be able to value the unduplicated and incremental reach of a campaign’s ads on connected TV and linear TV using Nielsen metrics, regardless of their DSP [demand side platform].”

SpotX says it is the first digital supply-side platform to leverage Nielsen data for connected TV.

The solution is also significant because it could encourage some advertisers that may still be reluctant to invest in CTV, due to concerns over measurement, to shift some of their spend in that direction.

“It's hard for advertisers to move budgets over without justification for the media buy,” Straight says. “This solution gives buyers the tools they need to measure campaigns across linear television and OTT. With measurement tools in place, brands will be able to see the impact and effectiveness of their campaigns with regards to CTV placements.”

Measurement remains one of the biggest sources of skepticism from advertisers around connected TV and OTT. Incorporating Nielsen analytics and bridging the gap between linear TV viewership with connected TV viewing is a significant step forward.

“Standardizing measurement across all video formats and delivery points is the only way advertisers can access a true apples-to-apples comparison, which will help measure cross-screen audiences in the buyer’s preferred language of GRPs or CPMs; justify ad spend on CTV; and provide ROI for media buys across every screen,” Straight says.