If I were to say to you that media measurement has not kept up with consumer behaviour, you’d probably find it hard to disagree.

Sadly, as marketers, we’ve become accustomed to being unable to measure the things that matter. Sometimes the blockers to advancement can be technological or regulatory, but just as often industry protectionism means your brand’s interests are not the primary consideration in how solutions are offered.

Heading into 2023 and more challenging economic times, being able to accurately measure, evaluate and understand media performance will be non-negotiable for most marketers looking to make every cent work as hard as they can. Rightly so. 

During the pandemic consumer behaviour jumped forward five years, and now all technology and media suppliers are scrambling to build the solutions that answer today's problems.

The best example of this is the television industry. Prior to the pandemic, brands and agencies consistently called for the ability to measure incremental reach of broadcast video on demand on top of their traditional television investment. After some delay a new measurement system, VOZ, was introduced, bringing new insights for the marketers and networks.

But no sooner had VOZ accounted for the Broadcast Video on Demand (BVOD) problem, then a new elephant came and plonked itself in the family TV room – Ad-Supported Video on Demand (AVOD). This is the new frontier of advertising on Netflix, Disney+ and many more traditional subscription services, but it is currently not captured in these measurement structures.

At the end of 2021, a whopping 74.5 per cent of Australians watched Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) services in Australia with an average number of 2.7 subscriptions per person (Roy Morgan). It’s been proven that Australians watch more of this premium content than they do traditional television (ACMA). These facts, coupled with economic uncertainty, mean it is highly likely consumers will adopt these new ad supported tiers en masse to save money.

Add to this other new services like FAST (Free Ad-Supported Television) channels dedicated to certain genres and additional Connected TV supply from the likes of Tubi and the TV market is more diverse and exciting than ever before, with vast incremental audiences available in different places.

Given the TV screen is still a premium advertising tool, this news should be exciting for marketers of all sizes as these options open up more affordable options for smaller brands. The issue comes when advertisers are forced to try to stitch together a patchwork of measurement to understand how these different formats and channels are collectively working for your brand.

And TV is still only a part of the puzzle – understanding how it works alongside the rest of your marketing spend is critical.

Fortunately, with new data capabilities, there is a path to total TV and total digital measurement.

No patchwork hack

While Yahoo was already delivering measurement for programmatic TV buys across many of these platforms, we knew there was a gap in the market to get a more granular understanding of how it was working alongside linear TV and the rest of your digital advertising,

So we partnered with Samba TV to deliver real data from more than 350,000 Aussie homes, directly matched to Yahoo’s 18M+ consumer identity graph. This data forms part of Yahoo’s Advanced TV Suite, a group of tools allowing you to forecast the incremental household reach of your digital media on top of linear TV, but also – for the very first time – measure it.

This evolution means Yahoo is the only provider in the Australian market to deliver this type of insight. This isn’t a patchwork hack, it’s real technology built for real marketing measurement.

We bring household-level TV data personalised to the Australian market with TARP based methodologies, and state, metro, regional panel alignments – just like Oztam and VOZ.

We enable you to cut through the noise by truly understanding the incremental value that each of your media partners and channels delivers for your brand across your programmatic investment. You can use it to have stronger conversations with your business partners.

It’s a massive step towards cracking the toughest marketing nut, true marketing effectiveness.

In 2023 marketers deserve the tools to forecast, target and measure accurately, across all channels. It’s no longer a pipe dream, it’s something that we’re doing today with Aussie brands. When you need to make every cent work as hard as it can, knowing what impact every channel has is non-negotiable.