THE STATE OF CROSS-

PLATFORM METRICS:
THE ADVERTISER PERSPECTIVE
By the ARF Cross-Platform Measurement Council
 PRINCIPAL AUTHORS
Charles Buchwalter Jenny Lu Jay Mattlin
SAMSUNG ADS GOOGLE ARF
CHAIR YOUNG PROS OFFICER DIRECTOR OF
ARF COUNCIL PROGRAM
Laura Manning
LUCID (A CINT GROUP
COMPANY)
YOUNG PROS OFFICER

ARF CROSS-PLATFORM MEASUREMENT COUNCIL

ONLINE-OFFLINE METRICS WORKING GROUP
CURRENT MEMBERS
Charles Buchwalter Kelly Johnson Judy Vogel
SAMSUNG ADS DISNEY UM WORLDWIDE
CHAIR
Emily Maki Jennifer Webb*
Denya ChinQuee TIK TOK BOSTON BEER
PARAMOUNT
John Nuding* Leslie Wood*
Kat Dykeman PUBLICIS MEDIA
AMAZON Jenny Lu
Eric Sherman GOOGLE
Jennifer Frierson GSTV YOUNG PROS OFFICER
WARNER BROTHERS
DISCOVERY Gregory Strzalka Laura Manning
GM LUCID (A CINT GROUP COMPANY)
Hadassa Gerber YOUNG PROS OFFICER
TVB Daniel Tjondronegoro
BEATGRID * Offered helpful guidance on
Callum Guthrie drafts of this report
INNOVID

BASED ON CONVERSATIONS WITH

Christine Beaufait Karen Chisolm Bryan Steele
GM PERNOD RICARD GM

Sebastian Brusilovsky Jennifer Mennes Other anonymous

MONDELEZ MONDELEZ advertisers

THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION 2 MARCH 2023

 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

OVERVIEW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

GRP s VS. OTHER AUDIENCE METRICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

TRADITIONAL VS. DIGITAL VIDEO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

FIRST-PARTY DATA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

PAIN POINTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

KPIs USED BY COMPANIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

LOOKING AHEAD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION 3 MARCH 2023

 INTRODUCTION
The metrics available to media buyers for planning,
buying and evaluating their media buys have perhaps
never been in a state of greater flux than they have
been in the past five years. As new channels have
emerged and changed, the industry’s need for such
metrics has grown. At the same time, the multiplicity
of potential sources of data on those metrics has
grown. These data sources not only collect information
in different ways, but they also produce different
metrics and define those metrics in different ways.

In 2017, the ARF Cross-Platform Measurement Council launched the Online-Offline Metrics Working Group
with the goal of gaining greater understanding of the available metrics, how they are being used, and what
the advertising community might be able to do to improve the metrics landscape. The ARF members who
joined the group have proceeded toward that goal in a sequence of reports and events:

• The Working Group first sought to learn about the metrics produced by the major audience
measurement providers. The Group crafted a questionnaire about the media covered by these
providers, the metrics that they offered to clients and the way that they collected these data.
This initial inquiry led to a panel called “Taking Stock of Online-Offline Metrics” at the ARF’s 2018
AUDIENCExSCIENCE Conference. The panel consisted of six measurement companies, each of which
presented their specific methodologies, metrics and definitions of those metrics. (A summary and
the six individual presentations are available through the ARF website). These presentations revealed
a number of different approaches to audience metrics, some of which focused on content, others on
ads; some based on the activities of devices, others on households and still others on people.

• After establishing this baseline, the Working Group went on to produce a panel of representatives
from six media companies at the ARF AUDIENCExSCIENCE Conference in 2019. That panel,
which was called “Mind the Gap,” revealed a clear divide between digital and non-digital channels
even within the media companies that offered content in multiple formats. It also highlighted the
differences between media in the metrics that they used for Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for
themselves and their clients.

• After producing a comprehensive guide to lift measurement options in 2020, the Working Group
turned its attention to the buyers of media whose audiences are measured by the measurement
companies. The members put together a discussion guide and then conducted a series of interviews
with representatives of advertisers in several categories, including consumer packaged goods (CPG),
beauty, alcoholic beverages, apparel and automotive. These discussions covered the departments
within the company that use audience metrics, the way those departments interacted, the metrics
they focused on, how they reconciled metrics from different sources and for different media and
their perspective on cross-platform metrics. The conversations culminated in a third panel with three
marketers called “Marketers Talk Metrics,” which was held virtually in April 2021.

This report is intended to provide the advertising
community with a glimpse of the ways that major
marketers approach the measurement of their
audiences in all of the different environments on
which they might appear. It is not intended to be a
comprehensive survey of practices or attitudes in the
marketer community, but rather a look at the metrics
landscape through the eyes of some marketers
whose budgets drive a considerable amount of the
planning, buying and measurement activity in the
advertising ecosystem.

THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION 4 MARCH 2023

 OVERVIEW
This report covers the following areas that we discussed at length with the advertisers:

• The metrics that the advertisers believe are important

» Impressions appear to have overtaken gross rating points (GRPs).

• Metrics for traditional TV in comparison to digital video

» There’s awareness that audiences are shifting, but questions remain about value and cost.

• The role that first-party data plays in their decisions

» Some advertisers have more of it than others, and some advertisers consider it more
important than others do.

• Their media measurement pain points

» Some examples: Lack of ownership of sales data, international TV data, long-term return on
investment (ROI).

• The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) they use and regard as important
» Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) is universally important, while others vary by sector, objectives,
departments.

• Their outlook on the near future of video and digital measurement

» How they regard potential new TV currencies.

A section is devoted to each of these topics.

THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION 5 MARCH 2023

 GRPs VS. OTHER AUDIENCE METRICS:
A NEED FOR STANDARDIZATION
ACROSS VERTICALS AND CHANNELS
Impressions serve an important role as a common
language across specialists or different forms of
media, but they are not always the most important
measure. For some companies, impressions were
considered to be the key metric—either because they
were tied closely to sales or because they were seen
as a common thread across all types of media. Other
companies we spoke with downplayed the role and
importance of impressions because they are less
important than other metrics (such as sales data) or
because they take a backseat to other objectives.
Impressions do play a more critical role in metrics
than frequency or GRPs, which were mentioned
infrequently as a key metric by the advertisers we
spoke with. Our overall sense from these companies is
that the concept of GRP is waning, and the need to tie
TV data into Digital (including connected TV [CTV])
or earned media (like PR or Social) is hastening the
advance of impressions as a vital metric.
There was another contingent of advertisers who
flagged both the impressions and the quality of the
THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION
I don’t want to say we’ve abandoned the GRP—
the GRP is still something we use for purchasing
and making sure that we’re getting the right
rate from a purchasing standpoint, but from a
measurement standpoint, we are simply taking
every piece of media to an impressions level.
– CPG Advertiser
impressions as important. Advertisers are conducting
advanced analysis (such as Marketing Mix Modeling
(MMM) or Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA)) to derive the
perceived or real value and quality of impressions that
are part of their large media plans.
Many of our interviewees noted that global data are
even harder to receive, harmonize and evaluate than
U.S. data. Emerging markets were flagged as being
extremely difficult to measure or track across all
forms of media; in fact, it was noted that it is difficult
to receive accurate impression counts in all markets.
Globalization should be a key focus for any industry
efforts around centralizing metrics.
6 MARCH 2023
 TRADITIONAL VS. DIGITAL VIDEO
Determining how to most effectively allocate
budgets between traditional and digital video is
top of mind for all of the marketers we spoke with,
and, at best, a work in process.
One of the realities is that most of the companies
interviewed continue to house linear and digital
media budgets in different places within their
organizations, which contributes to the difficulty
in harmonizing their planning efforts. One
marketer in the automotive sector has a total
ad budget (i.e., traditional and digital) for each
of their brands. A leading CPG player maintains
separate budgets with annual percentage targets
for their digital spend.
Underscoring this challenge, one of the
interviewees characterized their efforts to
harmonize traditional and digital video metrics
as equivalent to determining a “foreign exchange
rate.” This company establishes such an exchange
rate through econometric modeling of the impact
of their traditional video and online video (OLV)
audiences on an outcome of interest to them.
The single biggest challenge marketers are
experiencing with their decisions to allocate
ad spend on linear vs. digital platforms is the
unknown posed by duplication. Notwithstanding
the natural desire to spend money where
consumers are increasingly spending their time
(i.e., streaming apps), most of the marketers we
spoke to are struggling to understand whether
their campaigns are reaching the same or different
THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION
people on linear vs. digital TV. So, as things stand
today, some are asking whether they are spending
too much on digital platforms because they could
be reaching the same people through linear buys.
At the same time, others are questioning whether
they are overspending on linear when they may
reach desired targets more effectively via digital
platforms. This concern about duplication was
especially prominent in discussions about the
marketers’ over-the-top-TV (OTT) plans.
All of the advertisers the group spoke to
emphasized that they plan to meet consumers
where they’re spending time. So, the need to move
to CTV and streaming apps from linear TV is in
process across the board. However, several noted
that the high level of OTT costs per thousand
(CPMs) relative to linear is causing them to
proceed with caution. One advertiser commented
that, given the higher costs for streaming TV ads,
they are optimizing their mix to make sure that
they are not overspending and watching their
flighting to make sure that they are not exceeding
their thresholds.
We are being purposeful but cautious [about
advertising on streaming TV] ... . The number
of eyeballs is not super-high compared to
linear TV so we see that it saturates out ... .
But at the end of the day, our biggest issue
with streaming video is simply the cost. The
amount of reach you can get for the cost on
linear still far surpasses the amount of reach
you can get for the cost on streaming.
– CPG Advertiser
7 MARCH 2023
 One common theme across the interviewees is
that all are in the process of moving away from
demographic targets toward more specifically
defined audiences. This tends to be easier for
advertisers that have more first-party data than
those that rely more on other data sources. But at
the same time, it’s not clear that the move away
from age-gender demographics indicates that
persons-based targeting is no longer of interest to
marketers. One leading CPG participant mentioned
that they are significantly increasing their spend
on premium OTT channels mostly because it is
allowing them to reach their desired demographics
more effectively than linear TV.
As digital video’s share continues to grow, the
focus of TV advertising is shifting. Historically,
many marketers have used broadcast TV to
support their brands. But as digital video is
growing, many marketers shared that tracking
sales is increasingly how their advertising efforts
are being judged. And all of the marketers we
THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION
spoke with are closely monitoring developments
with addressable advertising and are fully
expecting that this will only bolster the focus on
outcomes-based analysis.
We were struck by the high levels of digital video
savvy among all of the marketers interviewed,
and all indicated they fully expect digital video’s
share to rise consistently in the coming years. Not
one suggested that linear TV would disappear
completely in the near-to-medium term, and we
didn’t get detailed assessments of the rate at
which the digital share of the budget will grow, but
an air of inevitability was shared across the board.
We have to find the right balance [between
linear TV and streaming]. We have objectives
where we still need to reach and have that
broad visibility that linear can provide, but
what we are moving towards with taking a
more targeted audience approach, [streaming
is] ... going to be there.
– Christine Beaufait, GM
8 MARCH 2023
 FIRST-PARTY DATA: ACCESSIBILITY
DEFINES ADVANCEMENT
Although advertisers across the board recognize
the need to develop a strong set of first-party data
to supplement their marketing efforts, individual
companies are approaching this need with varying
degrees of urgency and advancement.
Advertisers are impacted by the changes in third-
party cookies, which make the ability to lean
on first-party data all the more critical. Some
advertisers benefit from already having more
accessible first-party data due to the nature of
their long-tailed sales cycle, allowing them to jump
the initial hurdle of data collection. One advertiser
commented that “we definitely have taken strides
to align our technologies. It’s been a lot of pilots.
We’re maybe further along in that evolution, but we
still have a long way to go, especially as third-party
data goes away.” Other marketers commented
on the fact that investment in first-party data
infrastructure has become vital. By “building
within their own walls,” they can comprehensively
target and measure consumers using the data that
consumers have willingly shared.
By contrast, other advertisers may sit in verticals
that make it difficult to gather first-party data,
whether that’s due to lack of opportunity for
data collection, to government restrictions or to
consumer unwillingness. They must rely on re-
reminding buyers or transferring this responsibility
into tangential departments that are in charge of
THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION
first-party data strategy to see how they might
become relevant to consumers. Two of the
advertisers who spoke with the Working Group
indicated that this was their arrangement. “First-
party data is not in my personal purview,” one
advertiser said. “We do have an org within [our
company] that focuses on this. We are working on
this and ramping up first-party data collection to
increase and improve robustness of data.”
Ramping up first-party collection isn’t as high
a priority for all advertisers. For some, reach
or frequency takes precedence over targeting.
“Obviously, we are ramping up our first party data
collection,” one noted. “But from my standpoint,
and this is more from the measurement side
of things ... as we use this to get more and
more targeted, what really is the increased
return on that vs. being more broad-based
in our targeting?“ Karen Chisolm of Pernod
Ricard frankly stated that other priorities took
precedence because of the nature of her audience
and her business.
First party data–that’s not my first problem.
It’s probably not my second; it’s probably
not my third. It’s definitely in the top five ... .
Even if I look at our most loyal brand brands,
like Jameson, 70% of the consumers are new
to that brand when they go to buy it. So the
job for media is recruiting, re-recruiting,
reminding people ... . We’re focused more on
broad reach, recruiting, re-recruiting.
– Karen Chisolm, Pernod Ricard
9 MARCH 2023
 PAIN POINTS
While marketers said they have adapted to the current metrics environment and the data available to
them, none of them claimed to have gained mastery of all of the metrics issues they confront. While
acknowledging the fundamental issues of dealing with different measurement yardsticks for different
media and de-duplicating impressions across channels, one or more of them raised these specific
limitations of the current environment:

• Ongoing (as opposed to campaign-specific) cross-media measurement: One of the advertisers

commented that they could track exposure across media for a specific campaign if they paid
for additional tracking, but they are not able to do so on an ongoing basis across all campaigns
without substantial additional spending.

• Lack of ownership of sales data: Goods manufacturers that rely on third parties to sell their
products (retailers) also rely on third parties to provide them with data on those sales and so
aren’t able to obtain those data with first-party identifiers or at the level of granularity that they
would like. One advertiser commented that their lack of data on the sales of their products has
hampered their ability to do in-flight optimization.

• International TV data: Large advertisers tend to be multinational, and data on TV impressions

and audience composition in some international markets is slower than in the U.S.
Other metrics-related challenges they have faced include:

• Measuring the “downstream” impact of “top of funnel” efforts

• Data on the ROI or value of individual publishers—as opposed to categories of publishers—

through marketing mix modeling

• Determining the size of a narrow target audience for their smaller or more niche brands

• Determining the long-term ROI of their marketing efforts

There were some specific channels for which advertisers wish they could measure reach or value but
have had trouble doing so:

• PR

• Sponsorships

• Paid search

• Branded merchandise, such as cocktail napkins with their brand’s logo

• Audiences of streaming services at a person level

• Brand-related activity within apps, such as the purchases made within an app and what users did
within an app after they installed it

One apparel advertiser commented that it has proven particularly challenging for advertisers to get
the full picture of drivers or journeys to their own apps due to “any number of ad platform or device
operating system privacy restrictions.”

THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION 10 MARCH 2023

 KPIs USED BY COMPANIES
Advertisers track a wide variety of KPIs to monitor and • Engagement metrics specific to social media
evaluate their marketing efforts. The most prominent and individual social media platforms that serve
general metrics of broad interest they mentioned were: as indicators that a consumer has taken an
extra step:
• ROI / ROAS
» Comments
• Unique reach
» Likes
• Incremental reach » Shares/Retweets
• Attention » Consumers’ organic posts about a brand
• Quality of the impressions • Ad effectiveness (as opposed to an audience
• Quality/Effectiveness of creative for an ad)
» Brand lift
• Brand power
» Message association
• “Objective-based” or “Objective-dependent”
KPIs: • Footfall (a measure of foot traffic at a location)

» These are KPIs that arise when the advertiser • Amount of time it takes to get to a particular
defines an objective for a campaign and then reach level
assesses success in reaching that objective. • Digital-specific:
Examples of such an objective are changes
» Site visits
in awareness, conversions, registrations, even
» Viewability
success in obtaining first-party data.
» Fraud rate
• “Effective reach cost” (i.e., incremental response
» Invalid traffic
per $1,000)
• Metrics specific to mobile:
• Efficiency (e.g., cost per Total Rating Point [TRP],
cost per click, cost per impression). » Outcomes within a mobile site or within a
mobile ad unit
There are numerous other KPIs of interest to specific
departments within the advertising organization: • “Engagement,” measured by:
» Brand lift
• Household penetration
» Video completion rates
• E-commerce sales
» Attention
• E-commerce conversions
• Brand health/Brand strength and related “upper
• App installs funnel” self-reported metrics, such as:
• Metrics specific to online video » Brand connection
» Overall video views » Preference intensity
» Video completion rates » Saliency
» Video view-through rates » Meaningfulness
» Amount of the video that was viewed

The length of the above lists illustrates the wide variety of internal constituencies within global marketing
organizations for different types of media and advertising KPIs.

Different industry sectors are drawn to different KPIs. But even within organizations, it is perhaps no surprise
that stakeholders look to a plethora of KPIs, driven by their product lines, the channels in which they invest and
the objectives of their marketing efforts. Interest in such a multiplicity of KPIs suggests both the opportunities
for providers of advertising and marketing metrics to address these organizations’ needs but also their
challenges of working with different media currencies, layered on top of the metrics they need.

THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION 11 MARCH 2023

 LOOKING AHEAD
The Working Group’s interviews and the
“Marketers Talk Metrics” event that followed
took place amidst rapid evolution in options
for measuring television and video audiences
and growing calls by industry groups, such as
the Association of National Advertisers (ANA),
for standardized cross-platform measurement
practices. The interviewed advertisers were all
mindful of these developments. Some of them
played active roles in these industry organizations’
efforts, while others adopted more of a wait-
and-see posture. All of them generally supported
and appreciated initiatives to standardize
measurement and accredit new measurement
options.
At the same time, the advertisers tended to rely to
varying degrees on their agency partners to assess
the emerging currencies. As one of them put it,
“We are fortunate to work with our media agency
partner... . They are helping us out a lot in this
space [new media currencies]. They are helping us
with the planning and execution with media and
helping us even with metrics to try.”
THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION
We know we’re kind of in bumpy waters at
this point [with new TV current measurement
sources], but we’re really committed
to ... hav[ing] accreditation that remains
sound and reliable and to ensur[ing] that
we can have standards across the board so
that everybody can make those comparisons
available and easy for advertisers ... . We
really want to continue to have that ability
in the future to understand the quality that
we’re getting and maintain a trust. We’re
willing to test and learn and pilot new
initiatives ...
– Christine Beaufait, GM
None of the advertisers to whom the Working
Group spoke professed to have definitive,
future-proof solutions to all of their media and
advertising measurement challenges. Even large,
well-resourced global advertisers are continually
searching for new data sources for their KPIs,
new processes or tools for leveraging them and
new learning to improve their marketing. The
current state of the metrics landscape, in the eyes
of these marketers, signals both turbulence and
opportunity in the years ahead.
12 MARCH 2023
 SOURCES
Buchwalter, C., Beaufait, C., Chisholm, K., & Wasson, J. (2022, April 26) Cross-Platform
Measurement Council: Marketers talk metrics. ARF Cross-Platform Measurement
Council Event. Retrieved from Powersearch.

Buchwalter, C., Becker, R., Chasin, J., Hogue, J., Kelly, T.S., Millman, S., & Squires, C. (2018,
July 17). Taking stock of online-offline metrics. ARF AUDIENCExSCIENCE 2019,
Jersey City, NJ. Retrieved from Powersearch.

Mandese, J. (2022, May 6). ANA, 4As, CIMM probe industry transition to ‘multi-currency’
marketplace. MediaPost.

Watts J., Daly, E., Hughes, B., Williams, M., & Zapata, A. (2022, May 11). Managing the
transition to a multi-currency market. ARF AUDIENCExSCIENCE 2022, New York, NY.
Retrieved from Powersearch: video.

THE ADVERTISING RESEARCH FOUNDATION 13 MARCH 2023