Less than half of all digital ad campaigns reach their intended audiences in the UK according to research firm Nielsen’s online campaign ratings tool (OCR).
The research firm has tested campaigns from brands including Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser finding that less than half of all online ad impressions are reaching the advertiser’s intended audience, based on age and gender, on average.
Nielsen’s study also found big variations in performance between different online publishers and networks with more than 80% of impressions reaching the advertiser’s intended audience. Although, on other sites, it’s as low as 15%.
The findings have been released today to promote the UK launch of OCR which Nielsen claims will help advertisers optimise their campaigns to maximise ROI as campaigns are running in real time.
David Gosen, Nielsen’s European managing director, said he expected OCR to establish a currency for online campaign effecitveness. “In today’s challenging business world where ROI is vital, this new system delivers both a well-established metric in the form of GRPs and in-flight campaign optimisation,” he added.
Siobhan Crowe, Reckitt Benckiser global digital advertising manager, added that such tools would aid brands to better establish how their campaigns are performing against their initial objectives.
Media planning agencies OMG, OMD and PHD have signed up as UK launch partners for the tool with digital ad network Unanimis also using OCR to verify the value of its inventory.
OCR combines Nielsen’s panel data with aggregated demographic data from participating online data providers to provide reach, frequency and gross rating points (GRPs) – metrics widely used in for TV campaigns – for online campaigns.
“OCR will start to impact the online advertising market in the UK straight away. But it will also continue the Nielsen journey towards cross-platform campaign ratings into Europe to cover the measurement of both TV and online,” added Gosen.
Speaking previously with new media age, Unanimis managing director Andrew Fawcett-Wolfspoke explained how the Orange-owned ad sales house was looking towards such planning tools as a means of boosting advertisers’ willingness to book campaigns on the ad network (nma.co.uk 11 Sep 2012).
