MARCO ISLAND, FL — In the new era of TV ad attribution, the key to the kingdom is a real viewer relationship.

That is according to a company whose tech helps MVPDs track the actual outcome of the ads they air.

In this video interview with Beet.TV, Ethan Heftman, SVP, Agency Sales, Ampersand, explains what’s moving the needle on TV measurement.

Attribution is here

“I think television is doing really, really well,” Heftman says. “If you look back five years, there was no attribution measurement for television. It was a nascent, conversation.

“Now it’s a conversation that that is happening across categories, across vendors. It’s becoming table stakes in the television business, the same as it is in the digital business.”

TV ad attribution is the process of measuring the impact of a TV advertising campaign on a specific business outcome, such as sales, website traffic, or brand awareness.

Various sources are used, such as set-top box data, Nielsen ratings, and comScore, to track the viewership of specific ads and the impact of those ads on business outcomes.

The attribution process involves analyzing multiple data sources, including viewing behavior and sales data, to understand the relationship between TV advertising and what viewers go on to do.

Ampersand adds up

Ampersand is the former NCC Media, a cable TV ads integrator owned by three US cable operators.

Now reconstituted as “the total TV company”, its platform helps advertisers define and find audiences, plan and execute ad schedules, and measure and report their outcomes.

The outfit boasts viewership insights and planning on more than 40 million households, in every DMA, across more than 150 networks and in all dayparts.

Ampersand is owned by a consortium of media companies, including Comcast, Spectrum, Cox, Verizon and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs).

Deterministic data wins out

In that pivotal position, Heftman says he wants to support ad buyers’ new inclination to use alternative measurement providers and currencies.

“We’re open to whatever an advertiser would like to bring,” he says. “(If) an advertiser would like to work with Nielsen, an advertiser would like to work with comScore, we consider ourselves fairly neutral in that regard.

“But, ultimately, what we possess at Ampersand is we possess the deterministic viewership data from our owners, on what an actual ad is doing.

“We think that deterministic data, not panel-based data, has real value.”

You’re watching ‘What’s Next: Scaling CTV Through Industry Collaboration,’ a Beet.TV Leadership Series produced at IAB ALM 2023, presented by Index Exchange. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.