Measurement: Advertisers Least Satisfied With Digital Video, Linear TV, Digital Audio
- by Karlene Lukovitz @KLmarketdaily, September 13, 2021
On average, fewer than half of advertisers are satisfied with available measurement options for most media — and they are least satisfied with digital video, linear TV and digital audio, according to a new survey from Advertiser Perceptions.
Just 38% of surveyed advertisers express satisfaction with digital video measurement, and 42% each with linear TV and digital audio measurement, according to the researcher, which surveyed 205 professionals involved in the evaluation and purchase of advertising measurement.
Digital display isn’t much better, with 44% expressing satisfaction.
The top three are paid search and paid social media, at 50% each, and streaming TV/CTV/OTT, at 47%.
Given the current controversy over Nielsen’s undercounting of TV ratings during the peak pandemic months — including the Media Ratings Council having now suspended Nielsen’s national and local ratings services — it might seem surprising that linear TV is a bit better-perceived than digital video.
Although perceptions of linear TV metrics may decline further, the dissatisfaction has been longstanding, and perceptions may decline further, Stuart Schneiderman, senior VP/business intelligence at Advertiser Perceptions told Broadcasting+Cable.
With digital video, advertisers are frustrated that this relatively new medium is unable to measure what matters most to them: sales and brand lifts, he said.
In general, advertisers have less trust in third-party data than first-party data, are dissatisfied with the rising costs of measurement, and would like better monitoring to avoid fraud, the research indicates.
I wonder how many of these "advertiser" respondents know anything about how the audiences of the various media are measured? Probably not many. It would have been interesting to see what the result was if "advertiser" respondents were asked first how familiar they were with the audience research for each medium and only those who claimed a fair degree of familiarity were asked to rate the research. Also, in the case of TV it would be important to distinguish between national and local market ratings. Otherwise, what we are getting is playback from the often negative trade press and industry buzz, not true evaluations of the research.