Nielsen rival iSpot.tv integrates with YouTube's data clean room

ISpot.tv has completed a key phase in its integration with Google’s Ads Data Hub clean room, which will give advertisers the ability to evaluate total ad impressions and de-duplicated audience for YouTube and its YouTube TV virtual cable platform across linear and connected TV, the company announced today.

The integration, piloted with 11 advertisers across dozens of campaigns, will be expanded across iSpot’s Unified Measurement platform starting July 5. It allows measurement of total ad impressions, including co-viewing estimates, across TVs, desktop computers and mobile devices, giving iSpot reach rivaled only by industry heavyweight Nielsen. YouTube is the leading connected TV platform, according to Nielsen and iSpot-backed TVision, and one of the leading virtual multichannel video program distributors (MVPDs).

“As we’ve focused on helping brands justify and optimize their media investments in premium video, this has been the number one ask from our customers,” said iSpot.tv CEO Sean Muller in an interview. “This historically has been their biggest blind spot. They’ve had trouble getting the data in a timely manner, de-duplicating it from other platforms and understanding YouTube vs. YouTube TV, and then understanding how much [viewership] is making it onto television sets.”

The new capability provides insights into a huge and fast growing part of the TV landscape, he said. “The magnitude is over $30 billion in video spend on YouTube and YouTube TV combined, and about half that goes to a TV screen.”

ISpot “is uniquely positioned to do this de-publication in a privacy compliant manner, because we rely on our smart TV footprint,” Muller said. “We are able to see all impressions from any advertisers whether they happen on linear or on YouTube, so that allows really accurate de-duplication right on the screen.”

Apples-to-apples measurement

ISpot’s relationship with TVision, via an investment late last year, also gives the company exclusive access to third-party co-viewing data from TVision’s 5,000-household panel on connected TV, including YouTube, whose own co-viewing data from its pop-up surveys of viewers has generated some criticism from buyers who don’t want to rely on self-reported data from media companies.

Muller acknowledged the tense relationship between one key set of iSpot clients—TV networks and YouTube—who are at odds over measurement issues and whether impressions should be weighted by content quality.

“What we’re trying to do is help advertisers understand delivery on an apple-to-apples basis,” Muller said. “That means impressions of a video, how much a video was played and the length of a video whether it's a 15-second ad playing on YouTube or TNT. We think it’s important to know what screen it played on, and to apply the same qualifier for the impression.”

Advertisers, given access to the second-by-second data, can “use other [key performance indicators] to further assess effectiveness,” he said. “I think content quality will ultimately impact the length of time that a viewer spends watching an ad and the impact. Measurement on an apples-to-apples basis lets the advertiser ultimately determine effectiveness.”