Audience Measurement Part 3: Guarantees and Transparency in the Future

From buying panels to buying audiences

The importance of accurate audience measurement data becomes glaring as the focal point of campaign planning shifts away from buying media spots and towards buying target audiences. When planning a campaign certain questions are critical to ensuring successful delivery - “who are we speaking to?”, “what do they want to know?” and “where and when do we reach them?”. With reliable audience measurement data, as well as standardised data formats, we can be sure that we have the foundations to answer these questions and plan effective and efficient campaigns

Getting what you pay for

When it comes to delivery, media buyers demand that they get what they pay for, and rightly so. In the case of OOH, they find confidence in both the methodologies and the data of audience measurement systems because unlike some other major media, OOH global audience measurement guidelines were designed and ratified by both media owners and regulators.
As we look to the future where OOH inventory is digitised and traded programmatically, obtaining accurate data becomes critical. The industry’s commitment to absolute transparency and accountability in terms of measurement and viewability is key to ensuring confidence in the delivery of the OOH audiences. With new tools and automated OOH planning and trading platforms being developed, the possibility finally emerges to compare traded and delivered viewed impressions during and after campaigns.

A key to ROI and transparency

With marketing budgets under pressure and an ever-increasing call for accurate return on investment, it is important to note that OOH ROI can be accurately measured using econometric models. These models help brands understand the impact of key drivers on customer acquisition, market share and sales. The conditions for successful measurement of OOH in ROI models was set out in Outsmart’s ROI Fightback research centring around 5 key questions:

The Creative Effect

Did the creative support the ROI metric? You must ensure that the metric fits the objective.

Modelling the whole

Was an ROI score produced for each media channel and was there variation in the OOH data? The data must have a degree of variation for the model to work well.

Low quality data

Was a robust audience measurement system used? OOH is well-placed across the globe in this regard.

Exclusion

Was OOH included in the final model? Often OOH is excluded, though this does not necessarily mean that it is not working, only that it could not be statistically separated from other variables.

Low spend

Was the OOH ad spend high enough to be picked up by the model? Inevitably, the size of the budget is key to getting a good read on the performance of OOH. Accurate audience measurement data is central to the formulation of robust econometric models and dispels the myth that OOH performs badly in terms of ROI. Audience measurement data plays a critical role in the planning, buying and reviewing of campaigns and as such, the global OOH industry will build on accuracy and scope in the future. As OOH becomes increasingly digital, these high standards become more important and more evident as we seek to guarantee advertisers absolute transparency throughout the media planning, buying and delivery process.​