IAB Australia appoints Ipsos as digital audience data supplier

IAB Australia appoints Ipsos as preferred supplier for digital audience data

IAB Australia has appointed Ipsos as the industry’s exclusive and preferred supplier for the planning, buying, and reporting of digital audience measurement data in Australia. The appointment is for a three-year term commencing in Q2 2022 with the launch of Ipsos iris.

Locally Ipsos iris will be built from the ground up in collaboration with IAB Australia to meet the needs of the Australian market. Ipsos iris will allow media owners to reassert their value proposition and prove greater differentiation and provide agencies and advertisers a trusted independent foundation to make evidence-based media decisions.

Fully privacy compliant and cross-media ready at launch, Ipsos iris will continue to evolve with a roadmap of enhancements over 2022. It will also be adaptable to changing requirements as the industry develops in future years.

The appointment of Ipsos as the preferred supplier is the culmination of extensive work by the IAB commencing early this year with a strategic industry review of requirements conducted by Venture Consulting. This formed the basis for the standards and specifications of a tender issued in May which invited measurement vendors to submit their services for tender evaluation. Sixteen measurement organisations expressed interest in responding to the tender and the IAB was impressed with the high quality of tenders received and by the innovation demonstrated by measurement vendors in our industry.

Gai Le Roy, CEO of IAB Australia commented: “It’s vitally important to have a robust, transparent and inclusive standardised currency from an independent measurement vendor to provide a level playing field for comparison of audience reach and characteristics. The appointment of Ipsos will instil confidence in advertisers for planning decisions on where to invest their media budgets by providing accountability for their investments and offering ways to evaluate opportunities and measure success consistently across all media.”

Natalie Stanbury, Research Director at IAB Australia commented: “With the retirement of third-party cookies, the increasing emphasis on privacy regulation, along with recent global initiatives in cross-media measurement led by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), it was the right time for reassessment of how digital audiences are measured. Our goal is to ensure Australian advertisers and agencies continue to have access to the most accurate, credible, and future sustainable online audience measurement solution.“

Simon Wake, CEO of Ipsos Australia & NZ commented “Ipsos’ ambition is to build a better, stronger future for digital measurement in Australia. The data drawn from our panellists will extend beyond media consumption and provide unrivalled insights for our clients into everyday digital behaviours. Our proposed solution draws on many of the innovations delivered in the UK and leverages our UK team’s experience over the last 18 months. We will also be drawing from our extensive local technical expertise, and we look forward to moving with the industry in lockstep collaboration.”

Nicole Bence, IAB Australia Chair and Network Digital Sales Director at Seven West Media commented: “Our industry relies on robust, inclusive and independently measured currency and we are delighted with the appointment of Ipsos. We look forward to seeing its first sets of comparable and independent data in market next year, providing a true like for like measure of all publishers.”

Sophie Madden, CEO of MFA said: “A key role for the MFA is to ensure that the market has comprehensive, reliable, robust and trustworthy industry audience data that can meet the evolving agency and advertiser needs as well as technology and regulatory changes. Congratulations to the IAB on conducting an inclusive, thorough and efficient digital audience provider tender process. It is critical that the focus now shifts to product delivery in order to meet the necessary timelines for ongoing digital audience data.”

Doug Peiffer, CEO of OzTam commented: “OzTAM looks forward to working with the IAB and Ipsos to provide the best possible data sources in defining Australia’s video viewing market – including the first look at the in-home video viewing universe, leveraging insights from streaming TV meters in 2,500+ OzTAM panel homes.”

About Ipsos iris

• Currently operating in the UK and endorsed by UKOM
• Addresses the future needs for the whole digital market, inclusive of both large and niche publishers across text, video and audio streaming content accessed on desktop/laptop, smartphones, tablets, and CTV. This includes the audience measurement of media owner content distributed on a range of platforms.
• It uses a hybrid methodology combining metered data from a high quality, nationally representative, mobile first single-source passive panel with census site-centric measurement.
• The mobile first single-source panel will capture behaviour across multiple devices from all panellists which greatly improves the accuracy in solving the biggest challenge in measuring online audiences – cross-device deduplication.
• The methodology also leverages media owner tagging and first-party data to deliver daily overnight traffic volume.
• Iris delivers a fully privacy compliant solution at GDPR standards and, with no reliance on third-party data providers, the risk of future disruption is minimised.
• Provides a pathway to cross-platform and cross-media measurement solutions for the industry, delivering CTV audience integration with digital currency data for Smartphone/Tablet/Computer.
• Respondent level data provides a fully interoperable and transportable data set ready for integration into other third-party measurement, planning systems, buying platforms, trading platforms or other data management platforms (eg DMP, CDP).
• In addition to broad core demographic coverage, Ipsos iris goes beyond to report interest-based segmentation derived from content consumed as well as several other built-in segments such as psychographic segments.
• Along with 41 standard metrics available, Ipsos will work with the IAB to develop new metrics (such as an Audience Engagement Metric) and partner with other data suppliers to provide additional ways for media owners to demonstrate the unique attributes of their properties and help commercialisation of their content.

The tender evaluation process has been conducted by the IAB, IAB Board and a technical review group consisting of members of the IAB Measurement Council and including representation from the MFA with oversight by Simpson’s Lawyers.

Background on Digital Audience Measurement in Australia

Australia was amongst the first countries to complete a formal tender and technical review process of hybrid measurement methodology and was the first to formally announce, through this process, an endorsed supplier of this methodology.

For over 10 years the IAB has endorsed a sole and exclusive provider for the measurement of digital audience content consumption. Nielsen was first appointed as the preferred supplier in 2011 providing standardised data and understanding of the value of audiences across media properties. Nielsen has led many developments in digital content measurement through times of great change in our industry.

Gai Le Roy, CEO of IAB Australia commented “The IAB Executive, Board and Measurement Council sincerely thank Nielsen on behalf of the industry for their passion and dedication to providing robust audience measurement and their contribution to growing the digital advertising market over the last 10 years.”