- Looking to make a splash at the Advertising Week conference (runs from Monday-Friday in NYC), Facebook (FB -4.5%) has announced a partnership with TV measurement leader Nielsen (NLSN -2.8%) to let advertisers run joint Facebook/TV ad campaigns using Nielsen's traditional target rating point (TRP) buying system.
-
The solution is initially launching for news feed video ads, and will arrive on Instagram in Q1 2016. It lets brands and agencies buy ads aiming to reach a certain % of a demographic group (a TRP) on TV and Facebook, with the option to buy a portion directly with Facebook. Nielsen's services verify ad delivery and compare performance with standard TV campaigns. Facebook claims 42 joint TV/ad campaigns yielded a 19% total increase in targeted reach relative to TV-only campaigns, and were twice as likely to hit their target audience.
- Facebook exec Carolyn Everson: "It's very much in many ways how TV [ads are] bought today where the advertiser or the agency can submit their budget and their reach goals and how many [gross rating points] they're looking to achieve."
- Along with the TRP-based solution, Facebook is launching "brand awareness optimization" tools meant to help advertisers target viewers likely to recall their ads, support for mobile advertiser polls, and support for videos within its carousel ad format. eMarketer estimates U.S. digital video ad spend will rise 33.8% this year to $7.8B, and 23.4% next year to $9.6B. YouTube remains the market's biggest player.
- Also: Facebook says it now has 2.5M advertisers on its platform, up from 2M in February. Shares are off sharply on a day the Nasdaq is down 3.2%.
-
Last month: Facebook brings video ads to mobile ad network
-
Three months ago: RBC sees video ads eventually making up over half of Facebook's ad revenue