Nielsen teams with Microsoft to scrutinise online audience segments

Agencies and advertisers will be able to plan and manage their TV and online ad campaigns together using Nielsen data, the company said.

Under the terms of the deal Microsoft will receive anonymised audience segments enabling advertisers to target people who have watched certain types of TV programming. Other segments might be based on lifestyle, demographic or CPG purchase data, or the amount of time spent watching television.

The online audience segments will not include personal data and Nielsen is working with specialists MediaMath to build online audience segments using “lookalike” modelling based on Nielsen’s TV and internet panels.

“Being able to interact with consumers online who are, for example, heavy viewers of college sports or home design programming, or light television viewers who are difficult to reach through that medium, can prove invaluable to marketers as they’re planning their advertising campaigns,” said Jonathan Carson (pictured), general manager of digital for Nielsen.

Other partners involved are Specific Media, Undertone, Videology and Adap.