Earlier this week, Google and comScore announced that the media giant will begin integrating comScore’s vCE technology into its DoubleClick ad service. The partnership will offer marketers an easier—and independent— method of measuring audience delivery across their campaigns, and potentially help Google further entice brand marketers to shift more of their spending to digital.
Google continues to be a dominant player in the performance-related ad space; however, brand advertising remains a large-scale opportunity that the company has not yet fully tapped. For big brand marketers, who are not only comfortable with, but demand traditional performance metrics such as targeted Reach, Frequency and GRPs to help guide their channel planning and budget allocations, this partnership should prove to be a significant step in the right direction.
Validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) is a holistic ad verification system that can provide marketers visibility into some of their most challenging questions regarding digital campaigns:
- “How do I know if the right person (my target) saw my ad?”
- “How do I know my local campaign ads delivered in the right market?”
- “How do I know whether or not the environment my consumers saw my advertising in was up to my brand standards and safe?”
- “How do I know my ad was really in view of my consumer at all?”
Marketer Implications
By providing insights to questions like those listed above, and by doing so through a lens of unduplicated impressions, vCE helps brand marketers achieve a more complete understanding of the true impact their campaigns are having against their core targets.
Further, the availability of cross-screen delivery metrics, such as Reach, Frequency and GRPs, will provide brand marketers with fast access to trusted data sets that are directly comparable to traditional media straight from within the DoubleClick platform.
The partnership between Google and comScore will further enhance the vCE technology value by enabling advertisers— and even publishers— the ability to easily track and effect campaign optimizations and reporting in near real-time.
What won’t be lost in the integration is the power of independent measurement. Having direct access to neutral data sets will allow brands to feel and act confidently while in the planning, optimizing and even negotiating phases of campaigns with their partners.
The integration of Google and comScore vCE will be available in the U.S. later this year for desktop display and video ads, and there are eventual plans to expand the service for mobile and cross-platform reporting.
Cover photo via CNBC
