Nielsen announces move to impressions-based buying and selling

However, ratings will remain available to end-users for planning purposes.

Definition: Impressions are when an advertisement or any other form of digital media renders on a user’s screen. Impressions are not action-based and are merely defined by a user potentially seeing the advertisement, making CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) campaigns ideal for businesses intent on spreading brand awareness.

The push towards an impressions-based currency will deliver a more complete, precise and representative audience measurement, Nielsen says. It has the added benefit of enabling cross-platform audience measurement.

Impressions in digital marketing

Digital marketing has made impression tracking significantly more quantitative than offline advertising. For example, a billboard owner has no concrete way of estimating the number of impressions his platform grants advertisers. Impression-based online campaigns, on the other hand, can measure impressions concretely.

David Kenny, CEO of Nielsen, stated in a media release: “Nielsen is committed to measuring all audiences and the complete video consumption across the local marketplace. Impressions are the great equaliser across all screens, programmes, listeners and viewers. 

“Nielsen’s move to prioritise reporting impressions will help standardise the way it measures ads and content. This in turn enables greater comparability across national, local and digital. It is in line with Nielsen’s initiative to drive comparable metrics which are foundational to Nielsen ONE.”

Source: Nielsen and Marketing Edge, Nigeria