Ipsos and IAB Australia has announced that the new industry digital audience measurement currency Ipsos iris will be launched in early March after securing official endorsement by IAB Australia’s Board and Measurement Council.
Ipsos iris provides accurate data about the number of people who visit the content of digital publishers and platforms, along with the frequency of visits and time spent by tracking digital audience behaviour across desktop/laptop, smartphone, and tablets.
It uses a hybrid methodology that combines metered data from a high-quality, nationally representative, single-source passive panel with site-centric census measurement via media owner tagging.
Ipsos iris is fully privacy-compliant and cross-media ready and will continue to evolve with a roadmap of enhancements over 2023 and beyond. It will also be adaptable to changing requirements as the industry develops in future years.
The first step will be CTV audience currency integration from a data partnership with OzTAM to provide total (unduplicated) digital audience currency data for CTV, smartphones, tablets, and computers.
The launch of Ipsos iris is the culmination of extensive work by the IAB and its Measurement Council that commenced in early 2021 with a strategic review of industry requirements. Ipsos was awarded the IAB’s endorsement, having best met the standards on criteria across all areas of product along with criteria for operations and a future roadmap.
Ipsos iris has been the digital audience currency in the UK since January 2021 and recently announced that its contract has been extended until 2027. Ipsos iris has been adopted across the UK publisher and agency ecosystem.
Simon Wake, Ipsos ANZ CEO, said: “Built from the ground up in collaboration with the IAB, Ipsos iris is a robust, transparent, and inclusive standardised currency, which leads the world in independent audience measurement. Ipsos iris will provide a level playing field for comparison of audience reach and characteristics and is an independent source of truth for the media industry.
“Ipsos iris in Australia draws upon the innovations of the UK model, that is fully privacy compliant and that will continue to evolve with enhancements. Ipsos will continue to work with the IAB to develop new metrics to provide additional ways for media owners to demonstrate the unique attributes of their properties and help commercialisation of their content.”
Gai Le Roy, IAB CEO, said: “Ipsos iris will provide the market with a level playing field in terms of comparison of audience size and characteristics, offering greater confidence to advertisers for media planning decisions and where to invest their budgets. It will also provide a pathway to cross-platform and cross-media measurement solutions for the industry into the future.”
Craig Johnson, head of insights, Audience Intelligence at Seven said: “A wide range of media organisations and their measurement experts have worked with Ipsos to design and refine a digital audience measurement currency that will provide the Australian industry with trusted, comparable, and inclusive market data.
“At Seven West Media we are looking forward to the launch of Ipsos iris in March and excited about the upcoming integration of the OzTAM connected TV data, giving the most comprehensive view of the digital video market to date.”
Matt Rowley, CEO of Pedestrian Group and IAB Australia board director, said: “It is vital for the industry to have an independent measure of digital audiences and behaviour that provides agencies and marketers confidence in how they plan their media investments.
“The IAB executive, board and members have worked closely with Ipsos to develop a media currency that serves this purpose. I am looking forward to having industry endorsed digital ratings data back in market from March 2023.”