At the recently held e4m NewsNext Summit 2024, several media industry stakeholders spoke about issues plaguing the current TV ratings system in the country and how frequently shifting measurement metrics and potentially flawed data sets has been impacting broadcasters, advertisers and the ecosystem.

At a time when cable operators are anyway seeking succour as more households cut the cord and turn to the internet, and digital penetration continues to make inroads into the country, Connected TV is also attracting advertisers with clearly definable measurements and performance analytics which can be parsed to a granularity previously confined to personal smart devices.

By analysing data for attribution modelling, brands can determine how much of the traffic or conversions come from CTV ads versus other channels.

Some key metrics such as CTR and VTR can give insights into how engaged a viewer was with the ads so adjust and optimize accordingly (see box).

Measurement Matters

Nikhil Kumar, Chief Growth Officer, mediasmart by Affle, points out that brands have used advertising on television for awareness, recall and purchase, but traditional advertising on television has offered limited ways to target and measure the effectiveness of these campaigns.

“CTV changed that with its programmatic ability to measure and optimize campaigns in real-time. Within CTV advertising, functionalities like CTV's App Measurement, Engagement Sync, Household Sync, and Offline Sync empower advertisers to monitor installs and in-app events for both CTV and mobile apps instantly, in addition to tracking foot traffic. In addition, brands can measure incremental lift in sales,” says Kumar. 

As for Siddharth Dabhade, Global Commercial Board Member and Managing Director, MiQ India, while advertisers measure their CTV campaigns on traditional metrics like Impressions, Completed Views, VTR (View through rate), Reach, and Brand lift, which makes the role of data and analytics platforms all the more vital, “a shift from traditional metrics like impressions and clicks to outcome-based measurement metrics such as conversions, sales lift, and brand lift will evolve with time.”

Another key aspect of CTV measurement lies in Automatic Content Recognition, i.e. ACRs. These give a very granular view of content consumption at a household level.

Santosh R., Co-Founder and CMO, Elever, says advances in ACRs can also help in creating a reliable customer journey map across multiple devices improving reach and frequency of ad bursts. “Universal IDs are another important tech that can deliver anonymised user data across multiple platforms. When you put these together, what you get is a highly precise targeting capability to real-time optimization to finally the conversion data of each ad campaign.”

“As the CEO of an AI-powered marketing company, I understand the importance of measuring campaign effectiveness. In the evolving world of CTV, where cookies are crumbling, understanding key metrics is crucial. While impressions (number of times an ad is displayed) are a basic metric, they don't tell the whole story,” says Venugopal Ganganna, CEO, Langoor Digital.

According to Ganganna, CTV offers valuable insights beyond clicks. “Frequency tracks how often viewers see your ad, helping optimize campaign reach and avoid overexposure. VCR (Video Completion Rate) measures the percentage of viewers who watched a certain portion of your ad (e.g., 25%, 50%, or 100%). This helps gauge audience attention and ad creative effectiveness. In-stream Conversion Tracking measures actions taken within the CTV platform itself, such as app downloads or product information requests, providing a more direct conversion link.”

“While awareness metrics are important, moving beyond conventional metrics, at mediasmart we have also undertaken brand lift studies with Kantar to understand CTV’s impact. Our analysis shows that advertising on CTV not only significantly enhances brand awareness but also positively influences purchase intent, message association, and brand favorability,” adds Kumar.

As CTV evolves, so will measurement techniques. “By focusing on engagement metrics and leveraging AI, advertisers can gain a deeper understanding of campaign performance in the post-cookie era, ensuring CTV remains a powerful tool for driving marketing success,” adds Ganganna.