In your Google Ads account, go to the Measurement menu to find Cross-Media Reach. Click “Learn more” to get introduced to the key benefits or create a report right away.
On this page
Choose a location for your report
To create a report choose one from the many available countries. While Cross-Media Reach can be accessed from any user location, the reporting location is used to report as percentage of the population of the country selected.
Google’s Unique Reach methodology determines the absolute number of people reached in the selected reporting location, for example 15.7M. However, since reach is typically reported as a relative percentage of the total number of people in a given country, for example 22%, by selecting a country the corresponding census populations are used as a denominator to arrive at the relative reach, for example 15.7M divided by 71.4M equals 22%.
For Video campaigns that ran in more than one country, for example the United States and Canada, only impressions delivered in the one selected country will be reported.
In all available countries, Cross-Media Reach is reported at the total, national level, for example the total United States. However, in selected countries, Cross-Media Reach can also be reported at the level of states or regions or sub-locations, that vary by country. In the United States, for example, users can report Cross-Media Reach across a selected set of states for example, Alabama or Alaska, or metropolitan areas such as Albany, Georgia.
Choose a report type
Cross-Media Reach measurement works in 2 complementary ways:
- Digital Video only reports are available in all listed countries, supported by Google’s Unique reach model, so users can measure reach and frequency for:
- Mid-flight monitoring of currently running campaigns
- Post-campaign reporting for historical campaigns
- Digital Video + Traditional TV reports are inherently post-campaign reports as they layer in corresponding, historical TV campaign data from licensed, third-party sources.
- They are only available in selected countries where third-party TV data is licensed.
- Access restrictions may apply depending on third-party data licensing terms.
- Some TV data licenses in certain countries grant unlimited access to any user with access to Cross-Media Reach while other TV data licenses in other countries require additional allowlisting. Contact your Google representative in that regard.
Add campaigns
Both Cross-Media Reach report types, Digital Video only and Digital Video + Traditional TV, need a selection of Digital campaigns. In addition, Digital Video + Traditional TV reports also require a selection of TV campaigns.
There is no maximum number of campaigns that can be added, so any number of campaigns can be added.
Add Digital campaigns
After clicking “Add campaigns”, campaigns are pre-populated and listed if they are:
- Within the scope of your Google Ads accounts at the CID or Manager Accounts (MCC) level.
- Campaign type is “Video”.
Said differently:
- Any non-Video campaign, for example Search or Display campaigns, in your account scope can’t be measured in Cross-Media Reach.
- Only Video campaigns within the scope of your Google Ads account are listed. Any Video campaign outside of your current account scope can only be measured if you change the account scope. For example:
- You’re in Google Ads with CID 1 intending to measure not just the Video campaigns included therein but also those included in CID 2.
- Change your scope to the Manager Account (MCC) that includes CID 1+2 and you will be able to measure across Video campaigns in different CIDs.
As described above, Video campaigns outside of a certain Google Ads account can be included through MCCs to manage multiple Google Ads accounts from one place. However, any video campaign entirely outside of Google Ads, for example in Display & Video 360, can’t be measured in Google Ads Cross-Media Reach.
Add Filters to narrow down the list of measurable video campaigns. For example:
- Bid strategy type can help identify “Target CPM” campaigns.
- We encourage filtering by “Target CPM.” This bid strategy is typically associated with Video Reach Campaigns optimized to maximize efficient reach. Since Cross-Media Reach measures efficient reach and frequency, all video campaigns optimized to maximize reach, attain certain frequency goals, or both are recommended.
- Date ranges can help identify certain campaign flights.
- Campaign name conventions can be used to identify names that “start with” or “contain”, for example “VRC 2.0” if used within the campaign name.
After selecting a set of campaigns and after a report is created, reach and frequency metrics are reported across these selected campaigns in aggregate. Additive metrics such as spend and impressions will be summed across campaigns, while non-additive metrics such as reach will be deduplicated across campaigns. Reach is duplicative as the same person can be reached more than once for more than one campaign.
For Digital Video + Traditional TV reports, Digital Video campaigns with the below additional characteristics are particularly suited if they are:
- Ran in parallel with TV or were integrated into broader, cross-media campaign flight
- Used the same creative
- Used the same ad length (15 or 30 seconds) as TV commercials
Add TV campaigns
After clicking “Add campaigns”, no campaigns are pre-populated and listed because manual user input is needed to determine what is considered a corresponding TV campaign. No link or mapping exists between the Video campaign data in Google Ads and licensed, third-party TV data as both campaign types are sourced separately.
TV data providers apply their own taxonomy of entities that generally follows this nested structure:
- Company, for example, Alphabet
- Brand, for example, Google Pixel
- Product, for example, Pixel 7a
- Campaign, for example, Get Pixel 7A Free Plus Pixel Buds A-Series at 50% Off
Keep in mind the TV data taxonomy and naming conventions may or might align with business views of the agencies or the advertisers. For example, while Google would refer to their line of phones as Pixel, the TV data may describe that same brand as “Google Phones'' or “Phones by Google”.
Apply your own judgment in selecting TV campaigns with the below guidelines in mind:
- Apply your own knowledge of the selected video digital campaigns to select a corresponding TV campaign. For example: After reviewing the digital campaign names, for example, “SkinCleansing_Brand XYZ”, or the actual underlying video asset, one can clearly identify the exact brand (“XYZ”) and category (“Skin Cleansing”) advertised in the copy such as “Brand Deep Moisture skin care shower”.
- Search across the TV data taxonomy
- Top-down: <Brand XYZ> is owned by <Company ABC> so searching for the latter shows various categories of which <Brand> “Shower Products” is listed and seems to be the most fitting Brand or Product.
- Bottom-up: Searching for <Brand XYZ> yields the same “Shower Products” category and is another way to find the same entity as in the top-down approach.
- Select the most fitting and corresponding advertiser, brand, product, or campaigns.
- Use the date-range filter to narrow down the list of TV advertiser, brand, product, or campaigns listed.
- Use the flighting chart that shows estimated TV spend over time as an additional signal.
FAQs
What is the source for TV data?
Why can’t I find the TV campaign I seek?
What device types are included in the TV data?
What do the GRPs and spend represent? They don’t seem to be accurate. Why is that?
Why can’t I select any date range I want?
