Cross-media measurement is an advertisers’ North Star

Understanding what works and what doesn’t has been a constant quest for advertisers. It’s been an agenda item since WFA’s inception and shows no sign of abating. In fact, work over the past six years, prompted by brands, has accelerated WFA’s mission to solve advertisers’ global measurement challenges. 

The work kicked-off with the publication of the advertisers’ North Star needs and led to the ‘Halo’ technology framework, now being used by both Origin and Aquila.

The urgency of these powerful initiatives, now that the majority of the world’s ad spend is digital, has only increased over the last six years. Rapid shifts in media consumption have created a highly fragmented landscape where meaningful, comparable insights on reach and frequency are, at best, highly partial and compromised. This makes it incredibly difficult to understand, objectively and in totality, what campaigns have delivered. 

This lack of understanding of where frequency has exceeded requirements creates an opportunity cost in the billions. But this is not just an inefficiency cost to business. WFA survey results also find agreement that excess frequency is a driver for consumer ‘switch off’ from advertising. 

The way forwards is via industry-supported approaches, where we can align, together, on the most powerful and pragmatic solutions. Until recently, however, that consensus has not been forthcoming and, meanwhile, the regulatory landscape has toughened, making data less available than it was.  

 New research among both some of the world’s biggest brands (cumulatively spending in excess of $50bn a year on marketing) but also key agencies (responsible for managing approximately half of global ad spend on behalf of clients) underscores the magnitude of the challenge.

Analysis of the 48 company respondents to our research reveals four key findings:

Fragmentation and Complexity

Proliferation of media platforms has led to significant audience fragmentation. An average campaign now spans nine touchpoints, ranging from TV to digital and social media, creating challenges in tracking and de-duplicating reach and frequency. Walled gardens, privacy restrictions on data and limited consensus on the best way to join data between channels exacerbate the problem. Eighty-six percent of respondents cite data silos as a major hurdle.

Regional nuance

Global advertisers seek for global solutions. Seventy-four per cent of respondents say that they are ‘missing’ comparable cross-market approaches. Fragmentation is experienced in various ways, with the patchwork quilt of existing techniques and solutions, market-by-market, presenting inconsistency and navigation challenges for global advertisers.

The Efficiency Dilemma

These limitations translate into tangible inefficiencies. Poor frequency control leads to overexposure, resulting in wasted ad dollars and contributing to consumer fatigue – 80% of respondents agree this results in “advertising switch-off.” At the same time, 81% of advertisers report that CMM complexities inflate costs and resource demands, making effective media planning increasingly difficult.

A Call for Standardization

Advertisers overwhelmingly support standardized and transparent methodologies and consistent metrics. One hundred percent of respondents say that this is an important part of the solution. 

The good news is that the output of WFA’s North Star principles, the Halo CMM Framework, has emerged as the best way to meet the needs of the whole industry. Built around technologies such as the ‘Virtual ID’, Halo aligns with advertiser needs for continuous, tagless measurement and local adaptability while addressing the industry’s demand for transparency and fairness, and supporting regulatory demands for greater privacy for consumers. Additionally, this framework has tacit support from many major media owners.

Thanks to the commitment of many, the Halo framework has been built out and now includes open-source software code for many of the core components needed to deploy in-market (e.g. Virtual ID schematic and private reach and frequency data processing functions - over 250k lines of open source code). 

Frameworks need execution, however, and WFA and all our members are excited to see the progress being made in the UK (ISBA/Origin) and US (ANA/ Aquila). Origin is mid-way through its Beta Trials at the moment, involving more than 30 UK advertisers and ISBA plans to open Origin up for general availability in the second half of this year.

This is no mean feat. The Halo open-source code is a powerful foundation but the additional work required from Origin (and its partners including Kantar and Accenture) to stand-up a new single source panel (in thousands of homes), and develop complex contracts and funding agreements (with multiple entities) has been extensive. All of this, not to mention enacting local governance while managing complex (and sometimes opposing) industry interests and politics. 

As this research illustrates, the challenges – fragmentation, inefficiency, lack of standardisation – are significant but not insurmountable. More than ever, Halo, Origin and Aquila demonstrate that advertiser-driven innovation can address even the most complex issues in the media supply chain. 

We’re extremely excited by the progress being made by Origin with its beta trials and are looking forward to working with the team to share some of that experience with other markets so that the roadmap to CMM can look increasingly global over the next few years. Indeed, we know that interest from markets around the world (includingACA/Canada, AEA/Spain, BvA/NL, OWM/Germany, UBA/Belgium and Union de Marques/France) is growing. 

If we all stay focused, the industry can ensure that cross-media measurement evolves into a cornerstone of modern advertising, delivering value for advertisers, media owners and consumers alike. 

The 2025 Halo CMM Summit takes place in May in London. To attend, contact halo@wfanet.org.