Mobile Marketing talks to Chris Dubreuil, Research Now SSI’s managing director for ad and audience measurement EMEA, about  the future of ad measurement and the impact of the recent acquisition of audience validation business, DMA-Institute.

MM: What is Research Now SSI’s take on the current state of the advertising industry?

The media industry is in a period of dramatic change which isn’t slowing down. Ad spend is being cut in the face of digital disruption and concerns over transparency. Media agencies are reporting slower revenue growth and are facing a growing pressure to demonstrate better return on investment for their clients. New technology and changing consumer behaviour has added a new level of complexity to marketing strategies. Ad tracking, viewability, brand safety and non-human traffic are all keeping marketers and advertisers awake at night as they struggle to overcome these challenges. The advertising industry now more than ever, needs real-time insight and new non-legacy approaches.

MM: What was the reasoning behind Research Now SSI’s move to acquire DMA-Institute?

Marketers have been failing to deliver on the promise of big data for a multitude of reasons: it’s incomplete and fragmented, inaccurate and/or poor quality and it’s difficult to connect the dots. The quality of the data is at the heart of creating value from it and true quality data starts with the individual. Therefore, market research data – high quality, up-to-date, first-party information supplied directly from the consumer — is the missing link in creating value from big data.

The focus has now evolved from accumulating data – the Big Data trend — to having the “right” data – data that reflects the reality of individual consumers in a reliable, trustworthy way.

Audience validation has been a growing need in the marketing industry, to make digital advertising more efficient and effective and help marketers demonstrate a useful return on investment and precisely target audiences for their campaigns. In fact, in recent report conducted with digital marketing experts, Econsultancy, we found that just 25% of brands were confident that their advertising was reaching the right audience, despite 97% carrying out some form of measurement.

Through this deal, Research Now SSI recognised DMA-Institutes cross-media digital audience validation platforms as best-in-class. With Research Now SSI’s global opted-in data – one of the world’s largest collections of first-party data – the combined solution allows marketers, advertisers and publishers to measure, validate and optimise measurement and decision-making across the digital advertising value chain.

MM: What are the implications of the acquisition for the ad measurement market?

Research Now SSI’s deep and broad data from consumers and business professionals in over 40 countries is permissioned and up-to-date. High quality, permissioned data from actual consumers means more accurate data and better measurement for companies selling across the globe. Integrating data from actual consumers (first-party) across silos and gaining deeper insights of the attitudes and behaviours of ideal target audiences enables companies to formulate the right business strategy that includes product development, optimised marketing communication, and high-performing media and advertising promotions.

By having access to this new audience validation platform, advertisers and marketers are able to expand beyond the current limitations in the advertising cycle, using an all-in-one solution for their targeting and measurement.

MM: What is your vision for the future of the ad measurement market?

As the advertising mix is growing and it becomes even more integral to marketing strategies, it has never been more important to validate spend and demonstrate ROI. Ad measurement is key to delivering this insight, however with channel diversification and media mixes becoming more complex, this is a challenge for marketers. Our goal is to help marketers face this challenge head on, utilising quality, first-party data to optimise campaigns in-flight, gain real visibility into the impact of campaigns against their target audience and enable true measurement against key objectives, across multiple devices as well as cross-channel.

Through quality, scalable data, Marketers and Advertisers will become confident that their brand is protected, and their ads are viewable in the right environment in front of real consumers, who match their target audience.

This article first appeared in the September 2018 print edition of Mobile Marketing. You can read the whole issue here.