Google is injecting real-time metrics into its DoubleClick ad business via a partnership with comScore, the Mountain View, Calif., company said Tuesday.
On day two of the IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting, Neal Mohan, Google’s VP of display advertising, outlined the challenges marketers face in measuring the results of digital ad campaigns.
“Existing frameworks don’t do a good job of capturing measurements for brands,” Mohan said. “And the lack of measurement in our space is keeping marketers from reaching audiences that matter to them.”
Google hopes integrating comScore’s Validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) measurement technology into DoubleClick addresses those issues by allowing advertisers to track and adjust online ads in a matter of minutes versus weeks, Mohan explained.
“By working with comScore, we’ll be able to give advertisers [near] real-time insights into whether their campaigns are reaching the right audience. We’ll be turning a theoretical metric into a real-time metric,” Mohan claimed.
Adding vCE, which includes metrics on whether an ad was viewed and whether it was viewed by the target audience, will also let Google share more data with advertisers.
For comScore, the deal is a huge win in terms of scale, said comScore president Serge Matta. “DoubleClick is the largest ad server out there and integrating with them helps us significantly,” Matta told AdExchanger.
ComScore’s vCE technology will be applied to Google’s display and video inventory in approximately six months, followed by mobile, said Matta. The ultimate goal is to apply vCE across platforms, including TV. “Integrating TV into vCE and providing a cross-platform [solution] is on our roadmap,” Matta said, “but you have to start somewhere.”
At the same time, comScore needs to remain an independent third party, and so the company will continue to offer vCE outside of DoubleClick. ComScore also will not have any insight into Google’s relationships with advertisers through vCE, Matta added.
Additionally, comScore has started getting its vCE technology and the DoubleClick integration accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC).
“It’s one thing to be integrated into DoubleClick, but we need another independent, third party like the MRC body to validate our methodologies and the integration,” Matta said.
Last year, Google allowed Nielsen to put its measurement tags (Online Campaign Ratings) on YouTube, in addition to comScore’s measurement tags.
