Nielsen's GRP-Styled Online Ratings to Launch on Aug. 15

The Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings service, currently under testing by 80 brands, will be available on Aug. 15. The new metrics service is designed to measure online campaigns with data from across the web, Facebook, and TV, a Nielsen rep told ClickZ News.

“We are selling it to both advertisers and publishers,” spokesperson Marisa Grimes explained via an email. “It’s a subscription-based model for advertisers, but publishers can buy on a per-campaign basis…[It] measures audience reach and frequency for all online display advertising running anywhere on the web. This…provides a foundational standard for measurement.”

Nielsen seeks to change some well-established customs for online marketing measurement, which has largely depended on click-through rates and impressions metrics. The New York-based company has built a system akin to traditional media’s gross point rating (GRP) that could facilitate greater brand spend on Facebook and display ad networks.

ClickZ reported on the GRP ratings in May. At that time, Matthew Chelser, a financial analyst for Deutsche Bank Equity Research who covers Nielsen’s activities, commented about the ratings after attending a Facebook-Nielsen event, where he learned about the forthcoming GRPs along with 300-odd ad agency players in New York.

“It’s the development of a currency for online advertising,” Chelser said. “It has the characteristics to what buyers use for traditional media. You can negotiate against it; you can measure against it; you can post against it; you can offer ‘make-goods’ if delivery doesn’t meet the guarantee.”

He added, “Facebook told us that a top priority for them in 2011 was getting the metrics right. Measurement companies like Nielsen are a core part of that, as [Facebook focuses] on building out their advertising products.”

The availability of Nielsen’s online campaign ratings comes on the heels of moves by competitor comScore, which last week debuted a service that allows big brands to track the number of people who view and interact with their products on Facebook. The tool is designed to measure how well brands utilize Facebook pages and the “like” button. It also shows sentiment analysis in terms of what individuals say about companies on personal Facebook pages. Like Nielsen, Reston, VA-based comScore looks to establish GRP-styled ratings for digtal advertising.