In the age of digital advertising measurement, the key indicators of a successful campaign include reach and on-target percentage, or the percentage of impressions delivered within the target audience out of the total served during the entire campaign. However, despite advances in targeting methods, it remains highly unlikely that a campaign will achieve 100% on-target percentage due to consumer behaviors such as misrepresenting age/gender online, sharing digital devices with family and friends, and limitations with cookie-based targeting. Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings focuses on the people viewing, not the devices, and measures and reflects these consumer behaviors in our metrics of on-target performance.
With this understanding, media buyers and sellers require reliable benchmarks to evaluate campaign success. Over the past five years, Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings has become an industry standard for buying and selling digital media. Leveraging our sample of historic campaigns, the Digital Ad Ratings Benchmarks and Findings Report serves as guidance for individual campaign efficiency compared to marketplace averages.