Nielsen launches digital advertising research tool in Ireland

Audience research company Nielsen has introduced its Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) measurement tool in Ireland, which it says will help Irish advertisers and agencies measure the effectiveness of online campaigns in a "robust" and "transparent" way.

Nielsen says DAR, which calculates the size and demographic make-up of the audience for digital ads, is a stepping stone to a “total audience measurement”. This will provide a much clearer picture of the value of digital media to advertisers.

The global company, known for using representative household panels in its television audience research, has turned to "big data" from its partner Facebook to properly measure the viewability of advertising in a fragmented digital market.

Under the system, advertisers ask Nielsen to place a “tag” on their ads. When the ad is viewed, the tag is counted by Nielsen and a “ping” is sent to Facebook, which has 2.4 million users in Ireland.

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Anonymised ‘tag’

Facebook can then pair the anonymised “tag” with demographic information such as age and gender. The data is then “calibrated”, using Nielsen consumer research involving 4,000 Irish households, to correct the expected quirks and anomalies.

Almost all of the biggest advertisers in the US and the UK already use Nielsen’s DAR methodology to track campaigns. The tool gives advertising agencies daily updates on whether or not they are reaching their clients’ target audience, allowing planners to adjust when and where they choose to buy advertising in the middle of a campaign.

Some Irish advertising agencies have already trialled the tool following a “soft launch” in August. More are expected to follow after Nielsen gave a briefing on the tool to agencies, clients and media owners in Dublin on Tuesday.