Today, there is a cornucopia of content being created and consumed every day, through equally diverse devices and touchpoints.

This means advertisers have never had more platforms and media to push their branding front and centre to an ever-growing tribe of digital consumers.

According to Statista, ad spending in the digital advertising market is projected to reach US$740.3bn in 2024 and is projected to grow by 6.87% (2024-2028) resulting in a market volume of US$965.6bn in 2028.

However, as we pointed out in ourprevious piece, companion to this article, this endless stream of content, consumption and the data being generated by the interplay of the two has become a problem of plenty. With ad spends being spread out over so many digital entities, each idiosyncratic in their own way, how much of a bang are they actually getting for their buck?

The Overview 

“In the diverse landscape of digital advertising, ensuring value for ad spend and properattributionrequires advertisers to prioritize a unified platform that offers various full-funnel solutions to meet each advertiser’s unique needs and advanced measurement capabilities,” says Taranjeet Singh, Managing Director, Enterprise, APAC, Criteo.

For instance,commerce mediaconnects demand and supply across both retailers and the open internet, offering unified and closed-loop measurement.

“This allows marketers to move beyond proxies and gain granular insights into actual commerce outcomes, enhancing their understanding of the direct impact of their ad budget on revenue, sales, and leads. It is also important to set the appropriate KPI andattributionby audience and tactic, based on each stage of customer acquisition to customer retention,” adds Singh, pointing out that these shifts not only tackleattributionchallenges but also optimizemedia planningfor current and future campaigns.

The basic problem is that most streaming services have their own proprietary methods of measurement and there are numerous third-party vendors offering ad verification and measurement services. Vishnu Sharma, Founder and CEO, Efficacy Worldwide, says that while all platforms provide metrics and third-party tools generally corroborate the numbers, in terms of walled gardens like Google and Meta one has no option but to rely on them and map their own analytics data to check.

“Correctattributionis a major challenge when planning media on large formats of OTTs etc. One is dependent on a JIO or Hotstar for the numbers delivered. On big formats it is still possible to check broad visibility but till the time the CTAs match with the com deliveries it remains a major issue,” he says.

Gavin Buxton, Managing Director, Asia says that in the absence of an industry-standard form of measurement, collaboration and discussion across both sides of the aisle is important given the range of measurement andattributionchoices buyers have at their disposal. “To help mitigate this, buyers should work with technology partners who provide access to the measurement and currency solutions that best serve their businesses.”

What’s in a View? 

For instance, YouTube is perhaps the most significant video streaming service out there, with close to 33 billion monthly visits, only being beaten by its own big brother, Google. But what counts as a view, for the platform as well as the advertisers paying to be on that platform?

According to Manoj Kandasamy, National Lead Digital– Motivator (GroupM), YouTube's definition of a "watched video" involves a user engaging with the content for a significant duration. Previously, a view was counted after 30 seconds, but YouTube has since evolved. Different formats have a different way of counting an ad view.

“For in-stream skippable ads, particularly those under 30 seconds, YouTube has a minimum threshold that considers it a view when the user watches the entire duration or at least 30 seconds, For less than 30 second videos, the user has to watch at least 30 seconds of an ad to be counted as a view. Please note, there will be a skip option at 5 seconds, and if a user skips the ad, it won’t be counted as ad views,” he says.

Ashutosh Nagare, Vice President – Head of Performance Marketing, Interactive Avenues, adds that YouTube has different ad formats like In-stream, YT shorts, bumper, in-feed video, non-skippable, etc. “Shorts have gained popularity lately, receiving more views and engagement. For Shorts less than 10 seconds, a view is counted if the user watches the complete 10 seconds or clicks on the call-to-action button. Similarly, for videos longer than 10 seconds, a view is counted if the user watches it over 10 seconds or clicks on the call-to-action button.”

That’s why Kandaswamy says it is understandable YouTube wants to have a unified measurement metric across their products in-order to drive ad dollars more into YouTube as one platform rather than having a separate approach for Shorts. “It will be interesting to see how this evolves going forward, since Google hasn't yet started to monetise Shorts to its full potential.”

For the ones shelling out those ad dollars, Prashant Sinha, Co-Founder of Pravis, a growth marketing agency, which is a new venture launched by the founders of Momspresso.com, says that to address the challenge of measuring marketing impact across various platforms and services, advertisers should adopt a more unified and data-driven approach.

Venugopal Ganganna, CEO, Langoor, also says it's crucial to recognize that different platforms may have varying criteria for what constitutes a "watched" video. “For instance, on Instagram and Facebook, a view is counted after just three seconds of playtime. This shorter duration reflects the platform's emphasis on capturing users' attention quickly as they scroll through their feeds. Beyond mere views, engagement metrics such as likes, comments, and shares play a pivotal role in assessing the success of video content on multiple platforms.”

Mitesh Kothari, Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, White Rivers Media, sums it up, saying, “In digital advertising, marketers navigate a multi-dimensional network ofattribution, piecing together the user's journey across platforms with holistic tools. Google Analytics, CRMs, and precise KPIs become their weapons, demystifying touchpoints andattributingcredit where it's due. By understanding each step of the user's journey, we can spend money smarter and tailor ads to each person.”