Nielsen announced the launch of Streaming Signals, a new solution for connected TV (CTV) operators and advertisers to better understand who is watching a show within the household. A first-of-its-kind solution that unbundles household viewing, Streaming Signals enables both media buyers and media sellers to optimize and measure CTV reach for more efficient advertising, maximizing ad revenue and delivery to streaming audiences. Currently, most advertising on CTV happens at the household level.

However, households are often made up of diverse audiences with different interests. Streaming Signals is well suited for Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) clients since these two solutions together enable clients to both optimize and measure CTV reach for more efficient advertising. Using custom machine learning models to determine who is in the household based on historical viewership data, Streaming Signals delivers a signal within 50 milliseconds to CTV operators of who is currently streaming program content instantly.

This results in advertisers and agencies making better, faster choices to reach their target audiences, eliminating delivery of irrelevant advertising to viewers. In turn, media owners can attract more media dollars with ad inventory that is more accurately packaged, by delivering real-time advertising to the right audience. This solution is made possible by using machine learning algorithms, viewing from Nielsen's gold-standard panel data, and the CTV provider viewership data, assigning person-level demographics instantly.

Once integrated, the CTV provider will notify the Nielsen system and will receive a signal containing information regarding who is most likely watching within the household. The CTV provider can then play a more ideal advertisement rather than the previous ad that was reserved. For example, if Sons of Anarchy is being watched within a household, the 35-year-old male likely watching the show will be shown an auto ad instead of a yogurt ad, giving CTV operators the ability to sharpen ad delivery from their inventory.

Traditionally, clients have looked at on-target percentage when evaluating advertising on CTV. Streaming Signals empowers clients to positively impact that percentage by knowing before the ad is served who is behind the CTV screen.