Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings™ pacing and reports (Beta)

Some video features may not be activated for your network. To learn more, contact your account manager.

Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings allow you to report on audience metrics for campaigns running across all digital screens. Video Solutions for Google Ad Manager allows you to deliver impressions based on Nielsen data, and provides reports to understand the demographics of your inventory and review campaign performance.

Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings only report U.S. data for desktop, mobile web, apps and OTT devices.*

They are available to publishers in the U.S., Canada, and Japan.

_{* While Digital Ad Ratings supports Roku traffic, certification by Roku is required to populate Roku reporting. Ad Manager does not control this certification. See how to certify.}

Track and deliver impressions based on Nielsen data

When you create a video line item, you can select Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings as your provider for GRP tracking. Ad Manager then delivers impressions against the line item targeting and GRP audience you've selected, including age and gender.

Setting Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings as the GRP provider for a line item cannot be undone.

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Create a video line item, and select Video inventory.

3. In the "Delivery settings, select Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings as the GRP provider, and the age and gender settings that should define the audience, as measured by Nielsen.

   Nielsen co-viewing for OTT/CTV devices

   By default, Nielsen measures impressions for OTT/CTV devices using a co-viewing methodology, in an attempt to account for multiple viewers potentially watching on the same Connected TV (CTV) device. Ad Manager allows you to deactivate this feature per line item and exclude OTT/CTV devices from Nielsen measurement, and instead use inferred measurement from other devices measured on the line item.*

   _{* The ability to deactivate co-viewing may not be activated for your network. To learn more, contact your account manager.}

4. Select how this line item should pace OTT/CTV impressions, relative to Nielsen co-viewing methodology:

   1. Exclude CTV pings

   2. Include CTV pings, pace with strict co-viewing (desktop and mobile only)

   3. Include CTV pings, pace with co-viewing

   If you choose to adjust pacing for devices not measured by Nielsen (CTV devices), you can report on the number of "unmeasured" impressions by device category.

5. (Optional) Select Apply true co-viewing to apply Nielsen's "Average number of viewers" to the in target percentage in pacing calculations for CTV devices. This is the number of viewers considered to be watching on the same device, according to Nielsen data. This can lead to applying an in-target ratio over 100%.

   The "Average number of viewers" is measured by Nielsen.
   Example
   In-target % = CTV impressions / ( impressions / average number of viewers)
In-target % = 80 / (100 / 1.5 ) = 120%

Pacing and impression adjustments

Ad Manager automatically adjusts impression goals in an attempt to meet your Digital Ad Ratings goals. For example, if your line item's impression goal works out to 1,000 impressions per day, and Digital Ad Ratings measures only 500 in-target impressions on day 1, based on the audience you've selected (including your co-viewing selection), then on day 2, Ad Manager might adjust the daily goal above 1,000 impressions to meet the guarantee.

Ad Manager adjustments are only made once per night, as soon as Nielsen data is updated.

Automatic adjustments to the "Estimated total impressions" quantity set on your line item will never exceed 10 times the "Impressions in GRP audience" quantity, to prevent wasted impressions.

If the estimated total impressions is not set high enough, and the maximum of 10 times the "Impressions in GRP audience" quantity is met, you can manually increase the "Estimated total impressions" to allow the line item more opportunities to serve impressions to the targeted audience.

Ad Manager does not use your GRP provider or audience settings to restrict ad serving or to change your targeting or impression goal. It does consider the configuration using a best-effort methodology and automatically adjusts the goal up or down in an attempt to fully deliver enough impressions to meet your goal, as measured by Nielsen.

Monitor your campaign to reduce wasted impressions

While Ad Manager makes adjustments to ensure you meet your goal, you should review the ratio of ad server impressions delivered to Nielsen impressions, and adjust your demographic targeting to reduce wasted impressions.

For example, Ad Manager might deliver 1,000,000 impressions, based on your line item targeting, but the number of impressions that qualified in the Nielsen demographics you've chosen, might have only been 900,000. In this instance, you should run a report to see where wasted impressions are being delivered, and update your targeting.

The line item summary also displays the effective in-target ratio that has been applied throughout your campaign, and computes the estimated in-target impressions delivered. 

This is only applicable for Standard guaranteed line items sold using "Impressions in GRP Audience" as the impression goal.

Run a Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings report

Once your campaign begins delivering, you can run a report to see campaign reach, based on Nielsen data. You should also include total inventory in your report to see the number of impressions delivered outside of your Nielsen demo, and adjust your line item targeting accordingly.

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Click Reporting  Reports.
3. Click New report.
4. Click  and select Reach. Then, click Done.

5. Include the Delivery  Order dimension.

6. (Optional) Include any of the following dimensions:
   • Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings segment: Audience and frequency metrics.
   • Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings restatement date: The date Nielsen calculated the data, if data was restated. If this column is blank, the originally provided Nielsen data was never restated.**
   • Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings device category: Nielsen device categories: desktop, mobile, and CTV devices.
   • Line item  Nielsen Average Number of Viewers: Nielsen's estimated number of viewers applied to the line item's OTT/CTV impressions. This is an attribute of the "Line item" dimension.
   You can optionally include the Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings demographics dimension. However, some in-target metrics will become unavailable.
7. Select the desired metrics and click Run.

If no data is reported, you should confirm the campaign status with Nielsen. Campaigns that have been inactive for an extended period of time may be automatically canceled by Nielsen.

^{** If Nielsen has to recalculate and replace the data, the restatement date is the date the recalculation took place.}

Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings metrics

Some "in-target" metrics may not be activated for your network. To learn more, contact your account manager.

The following metrics are available in Ad Manager reporting:

Impressions The impressions that have accumulated from the beginning of this row’s cumulative metric date range. If the date dimension is included, this metric is for all impressions that have accumulated from the beginning of this row’s cumulative metric date range up to and including the row’s date.

Population base Total population of the market defined by the age and gender for this row.

% population share Population / Total Population (For Demographics)

Unique audience Number of people that have been reached by ads for this campaign since the beginning of this row’s cumulative metric date range. If the date dimension is included, this metric is for total reach that have accumulated from the beginning of this row’s cumulative metric date range up to and including the row’s date.

% audience share Cumulative Reach / Total Cumulative Reach (For Demographics)

Audience index % Reach Share (For Demographics) / % Population Share (For Demographics)

% impression share Cumulative Impressions / Total Cumulative Impressions (For Demographics)

Impressions index % Impression Share (For Demographics) / % Population Share (For Demographics)

% audience reach Cumulative Reach / Population

Average frequency Cumulative impressions / Cumulative Reach

Gross rating points Cumulative Impressions / Population * 100

In-target impressions The total number of impressions served that were measured to be in-target. You can include the "Nielsen DAR device category" dimension to see these impressions by device category.

In-target % impression share This is currently a beta offering and may not be available for your network. Contact your account team for more information.

In-target unmeasurable impressions The number of impressions served where Nielsen was not able to measure the gender and age range, but we expect to be in-target. You can include the "Nielsen DAR device category" dimension to see these impressions by device category. Example Line item A has 1M impressions: 600K measured and 400K unmeasured. If among the 600K measured, 50% are in-target, in-target unmeasurable impressions are 400K × 50%, or 200K.

Processed in-target rate The adjusted in-target impression share used for pacing and billing, based on the GRP pacing preferences indicated in your line item settings. This metric requires the "Line item" dimension, and additionally only supports the "Date" and "Order" dimensions. Data is available beginning May 1, 2022 and may lag by several days due to Nielsen reporting delays.