Nielsen announced this week that it will add CTV coverage to its Ad Intel product in the UK from September.
The integration, which is already live in the US and Germany, will allow marketers to track CTV ad spending across streaming platforms, giving them a clearer understanding of the media landscape.
The new feature will give marketers a breakdown of ad performance across in-app, browser, and smart TV to help enhance targeting and effectiveness.
Nielsen claims it will also give them insights into competitors’ media strategies, by giving them ‘greater visibility into where they are investing’ as well as how ad spend is shifting.
‘Marketers today grapple with a fragmented media landscape, struggling to allocate ad spend effectively and cut through the noise,’ Inam Mahmood, general manager of EMEA at Nielsen, said in a statement. ‘Our Annual Marketing Report underscores this challenge, revealing that 56% of global marketers intend to increase their CTV spending in 2025 — a clear indicator of the channel’s rising prominence.’
But, despite Nielsen claiming that CTV has become ‘the fastest growing ad channel’, the industry is cautious.
Justin Lebbon, co-founder and director at Mediatel Events, wrote on LinkedIn that CTV is ‘deeply problematic’ and that CTV fraud is estimated to be at around 20%.
‘I’ve been tracking ad fraud for years,’ wrote Lebbon. ‘We presented on fraud in CTV back in 2019, warning that it would get worse. Nothing meaningful was done. Instead, most headlines today are about clients under-investing in CTV and being urged to spend more.’
And Lebbon isn’t the only one who is sceptical about the channel.
Financial analyst Brian Wieser found that streaming accounts for only 10% of all ad viewing on TV, despite it representing 44% of all TV content viewing. He also noted that CTV ad spend makes up 31% of all TV ad spend, meaning that there is a ‘3X gap between spend and viewing share’.
Nielsen’s new integration could offer some much-needed clarity and transparency around where CTV ad spend is going and whether it is worth investing in the channel.
Mahmood called the UK launch ‘a pivotal moment’ and said that Nielsen will continue rolling out the capability across EMEA.
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