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Advertisers have spent years demanding reliable, independent ad measurement, but independent measurement providers are consolidating.
News of Nielsen’s planned $2.15 billion takeover of DoubleVerify broke last week, less than eight months after private equity firm Novacap snapped up DoubleVerify rival Integral Ad Science (IAS) for $1.9 billion.
The moves are reshaping market dynamics at a moment when media fragmentation—with ad revenue splintered across the open web, TV, streaming, social, search, and mobile—is dialing up the need for independent measurement.
DoubleVerify’s union with Nielsen, a TV audience measurement titan, could provide advertisers with a more unified view of measurement, bringing together Nielsen’s rich audience data with DoubleVerify’s ad quality and brand safety verification tools. Plus, with DoubleVerify, Nielsen also gains control of Rockerbox , a multi-touch attribution and marketing mix modeling platform that could strengthen the company’s ability to measure outcomes, not just media.
“There’s this huge unmet need for independent measurement out there, and not verification, viewability, fraud prevention, [but] true measurement, apples to apples. What did Google contribute to my bottom line versus Meta, versus Amazon, and everybody else?” said Eric Schmitt, vice president and analyst at Gartner focused on advertising.
Recent years’ media fragmentation and opacity around the data owned by media companies have only made the picture more blurry, he said. “How does [the need] get filled, and will the company or companies that fill it ever get access to the information they really need from the big sell-side platforms in order to provide that kind of meaningful measurement? Nielsen and DV just brings this into really sharp relief.”
A Nielsen spokesperson said in a statement that the deal aims to “provide a better end-to-end platform for every participant in the advertising space, enabling superior decisions and outcomes.”
In an email sent to some DoubleVerify customers last week and documented in an SEC filing , CEO Mark Zagorski said, “Nielsen’s audience and currency layer, coupled with DV’s media quality expertise results in the unmatched combination of a trusted, independent referee and scorekeeper.”
He further explained that the arrangement would give DoubleVerify access “to an expanded set of data signals and products, together with panel insights from one of the world’s leading media measurement companies.”
DoubleVerify did not respond to ADWEEK’s request for comment.
Some observers expressed concerns about DoubleVerify’s ability to maintain independence and neutrality.
The platform has long positioned itself as an independent, third-party verifier, but it will now sit within Nielsen, a major player in the adjacent audience measurement business. Nielsen plans to combine DoubleVerify’s media quality signals with its own audience data, putting the onus on DoubleVerify to demonstrate that it can remain a neutral umpire.
One way to assuage potential concerns about independence will be giving advertisers visibility into measurement methodo…