Cross-media measurement study targets European standards fragmentation

The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement and the World Federation of Advertisers today announced a comprehensive strategic review of cross-media measurement initiatives across Europe. Industry consultants Andy Brown, Paul Goode and Sarah Mansfield will lead the assessment, which examines whether emerging solutions can deliver scalable, privacy-compliant, advertiser-grade measurement while identifying practical barriers to implementation.

According to the announcement, the review will evaluate methodological strengths and limitations of various approaches, requirements for scale and adoption, and the specific roles advertisers, agencies, media owners and measurement providers must fulfill. A cross-industry steering committee of senior leaders will provide input throughout the process, though final analysis and conclusions remain those of CIMM, WFA and the study authors.

The committee includes Zeman Bhunnoo (independent), Yannick Carriou (Mediametrie), Davide Crestani (Auditel), Ben Hovaness (Omnicom), George Ivie (MRC), Helen Katz (Publicis Media), Chris Mundy (RSMB), Valérie Morrisson (CESP), Neha Sharma (Unilever), Norman Wagner (Utiq) and Mark Stephenson (WPP Media).

Competing measurement frameworks under examination

Cross-media measurement addresses a fundamental challenge in modern advertising: understanding how different channels contribute to campaign performance when audiences consume content across television, CTV, streaming, digital and social media. Yet delivering consistent, deduplicated measurement remains technically complex and operationally expensive, requiring integration of disparate measurement approaches, reconciliation of exposures across devices and households, access to data from both local media owners and global platforms, and compliance with European privacy and regulatory frameworks.

Multiple solutions have emerged across Europe with varying methodologies. Origin in the UK partially relies on the WFA's industry-developed Halo open-source cross-media measurement framework, which incorporates single-source panel and digital census data. Panel-based Joint Industry Committee systems are receiving extensions in some markets, while agency or vendor-led technical frameworks often involve data fusion techniques.

Each solution reflects meaningful progress and investment, the announcement notes, but uncertainty remains about which can meet advertisers' needs and secure broad, cross-industry support at scale. The commercial model for sustaining cross-media measurement remains unsolved given significant costs associated with development, data access and system operation.

"While significant progress has been made, data silos, varying methodologies and regulatory constraints continue to create challenges for the industry," according to Jon Watts, Managing Director at CIMM. "The commercial sustainability of different solutions is unclear. This new study aims to facilitate alignment and understanding about the prospects for cross-media measurement in Europe, the meaningful differences between the available solutions, and the challenges and priorities ahead."

Matt Green, Director of Global Media and Measurement at WFA, stated that Halo is being implemented through pioneering prototypes in the UK and US while local JIC and broadcaster-led solutions continue evolving. "With this study, we hope to help the industry understand how these efforts can complement one another and what practical steps are needed for scalable, future-ready CMM that works for advertisers and the wider ecosystem."

Privacy compliance demands reshape measurement approaches

The analysis will outline practical steps needed to move from experimentation toward solutions delivering consistent, deduplicated and comparable measurement of advertising exposure, reach and effectiveness across media channels. Solutions must meet European privacy, regulatory and governance standards. The review will not mandate a single solution or currency, instead providing a decision framework each market can use to achieve greater alignment and collaboration.

Technical complexity stems from integrating measurement across channels while maintaining privacy compliance. Privacy-enhanced measurement has become essential as advertising technology adapts to identifier restrictions. Traditional measurement approaches count viewers multiple times across platforms, inflating reach calculations and reducing campaign effectiveness insights.

Measurement methodology has evolved substantially to address growing demand for transparent, standardized cross-platform audience measurement as media consumption fragments across channels and devices. Deduplication requires sophisticated technical infrastructure capable of identifying unique viewers across different devices, formats and platforms without compromising individual privacy.

The study arrives as European advertising technology faces intensifying scrutiny around data handling practices and consumer consent mechanisms. Privacy advocacy groups have challenged inadequate enforcement of GDPR consent requirements, with recent lawsuits targeting German data protection authorities over prolonged inaction on unlawful consent systems. German courts clarified cookie consent requirements in 2025, establishing stricter standards for consent interface design.

Fragmented measurement landscape drives advertiser demands

Cross-media measurement has demonstrated substantial impact on advertising efficiency in deployed markets. AudienceProject's collaboration with Heineken and Meta revealed digital channels delivered 19.4 times more efficient reach compared to traditional television campaigns. These insights prompted Heineken to increase digital investment allocation from 30% to over 42% of media budget while documenting a 22 percentage point lift in brand awareness when campaigns combined exposure across both TV and Meta platforms.

Research demonstrates the business imperative for unified measurement. According to industry analysis, Connected TV's share of media budgets is projected to double from 14% in 2023 to 28% in 2025, underscoring the importance of unified measurement capabilities across television and streaming platforms. Traditional platforms face mounting pressure as 46% of marketers indicate plans to reallocate funds from linear TV to CTV.

Different European markets have developed varying measurement infrastructures reflecting local media ownership structures, regulatory environments and industry relationships. Médiamétrie partnered with AudienceProject in September 2025 to accelerate development of its Cross-Media Video advertising measurement solution targeting Q1 2026 launch. The French audience measurement company processes over one billion data points daily to support strategic decision-making for domestic and international clients.

Panel-based measurement systems established through Joint Industry Committees provide foundational television audience measurement in multiple European markets. Comscore achieved complete JIC certification for national TV measurement in the United States in July 2025, demonstrating the certification's importance for establishing transactable measurement standards. The JIC represents a crucial component of media buying ecosystems, comprising buyers and sellers who provide thought leadership and make credible recommendations on the readiness of cross-platform currencies.

Technical barriers complicate standardization efforts

Identity resolution challenges historically limited connected television advertising effectiveness. Without standardized approaches to linking exposures across devices, platforms and households, advertisers struggle to understand true campaign reach and frequency. Clean-room technologies facilitate data matching with platform providers such as Netflix, Amazon, Meta and Disney+ while considering platform-specific configurations, enabling campaign reach verification through privacy-preserving techniques.

Walled garden platforms including Google, Meta, Amazon and Apple operate closed advertising ecosystems where platform owners control both advertising inventory and audience data, limiting external access to user information. Advertisers cannot export detailed audience data from these platforms, making cross-platform measurement challenging. Advanced cross-media measurement systems use identity resolution techniques including hashed email matching and device fingerprinting to connect user interactions across different touchpoints.

Co-viewing measurement represents a technical advancement accounting for multiple viewers per device in household environments, providing more accurate reach calculations than traditional systems tracking individual device usage. This capability addresses television advertising's persistent challenge of capturing household viewing behavior where streaming content consumption often involves multiple people viewing a single screen.

Google Ads introduced Cross-Media Reach measurement in June 2024, providing advertisers with deduplicated reach and frequency insights across YouTube and traditional television. The functionality addresses growing demand for unified campaign measurement across digital and linear channels, demonstrating how major platforms are developing proprietary solutions that may or may not integrate with broader industry measurement frameworks.

Steering committee addresses commercial realities

The steering committee's composition reflects the diverse stakeholders whose cooperation is essential for any measurement solution to achieve scale. Advertisers require independent, transparent measurement to make informed media investment decisions. Broadcasters and platforms control access to viewing data and advertising inventory. Agencies plan and execute campaigns across multiple channels. Measurement bodies bring methodological expertise and industry standards. Technology providers implement the infrastructure connecting these parties.

The announcement acknowledges technical complexity, political sensitivity, commercial competition and regulatory challenges shape measurement development. Different stakeholders face differing motivations and incentives. Broadcasters may resist sharing granular viewing data with competitors. Platforms that invested heavily in proprietary measurement may be reluctant to adopt external standards. Advertisers want measurement that enables comparison across all media channels regardless of who provides those channels.

CIMM, a non-partisan, pan-industry coalition, focuses on cultivating improvements, best practices and innovations in measurement and currency. The organization's members include leading networks, studios, streamers and programmers, MVPDs, TV OEMs and OS providers, major digital businesses, agencies, measurement and data providers, trade bodies and consultants. CIMM operates as a subsidiary of the Advertising Research Foundation and adheres to the ARF's principles of scientific rigor, objectivity and evidence-based research.

WFA champions more effective and sustainable marketing communications. The organization represents 90% of global marketing communications spend, approximately $900 billion per annum. WFA connects the world's biggest brand owners and national advertiser associations in more than 60 markets, bringing together tens of thousands of brands at local level.

Industry consolidation reflects measurement imperative

Television advertising technology continues consolidating around unified measurement and buying platforms. Utiq and Visoon launched consent-based identifiers for TV advertising in September 2025, marking the first deployment of Utiq's consentpass technology in the TV ecosystem spanning both Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV and Connected TV platforms. The partnership addresses technical challenges in addressable advertising across linear television, streaming services and digital environments.

Measurement companies expanded capabilities throughout 2025 to address fragmentation. Comscore launched comprehensive content measurement tools in January 2025, integrating data streams to analyze audience behavior across linear television, streaming services, personal computers, mobile devices and social media platforms. The company rebranded Comscore Campaign Ratings as Cross-Platform Campaign Results to reflect deduplicated audience measurement across television, CTV, digital, social and audio channels.

IAB Tech Lab outlined a 2025 roadmap addressing Connected TV advertising formats, privacy regulation compliance and cross-television measurement standards. The organization plans to develop an Ad Creative ID Framework for cross-television measurement, device attestation integration into the Open Measurement SDK for fraud prevention, and commerce media extensions in Open RTB. These standardization efforts aim to enable programmatic trading of CTV advertising through consistent technical specifications.

Several measurement providers launched geographic expansions addressing European market diversity. AudienceProject launched cross-media measurement services in Mexico in September 2025, demonstrating measurement technology's global relevance. DOUGLAS partnered with AudienceProject in October 2025 to implement comprehensive cross-media measurement capabilities across Germany, Austria and Switzerland operations.

The review's findings will inform how European advertising markets approach measurement standardization over the coming years. Markets face choices between adopting unified frameworks, extending existing panel-based systems, implementing vendor-led solutions or developing hybrid approaches combining multiple methodologies. Each path presents technical challenges, requires substantial investment and demands coordination across competing commercial interests.

For advertisers operating across European markets, the lack of standardized cross-media measurement complicates budget allocation decisions, campaign planning and performance evaluation. Without consistent metrics, comparing campaign effectiveness across markets or optimizing media mix becomes difficult. The study's decision framework could accelerate adoption of approaches enabling more sophisticated data-driven planning processes incorporating creator content, streaming platforms and traditional channels under unified measurement standards.

Timeline

• January 15, 2026 - CIMM and WFA announce strategic review of cross-media measurement in Europe led by Andy Brown, Paul Goode and Sarah Mansfield
• October 2025 - AudienceProject outlines Q4 roadmap with Trade Desk integration and Poland expansion for cross-media measurement
• October 2025 - AudienceProject executive Bruno Furnari discusses independent measurement priorities amid fragmentation
• October 2025 - DOUGLAS partners with AudienceProject for cross-media measurement in Germany, Austria and Switzerland
• September 2025 - Heineken increases digital investment to 42% following cross-media measurement study revealing 19.4x efficiency gains
• September 2025 - AudienceProject launches in Mexico, entering Latin America's second-largest advertising market
• September 2025 - Médiamétrie partners with AudienceProject to accelerate Cross-Media Video measurement solution targeting Q1 2026 launch
• July 2025 - Comscore achieves full JIC certification for national TV measurement including Personified Demographics
• June 2024 - Google Ads introduces Cross-Media Reach measurement with deduplicated metrics across YouTube and traditional television

Summary

Who: The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement and the World Federation of Advertisers initiated the strategic review, led by industry consultants Andy Brown, Paul Goode and Sarah Mansfield. A cross-industry steering committee includes representatives from Unilever, Mediametrie, Auditel, Omnicom, MRC, Publicis Media, RSMB, CESP, Utiq, WPP Media and independent experts.

What: A comprehensive strategic review examining cross-media measurement initiatives across Europe to assess which approaches can deliver scalable, privacy-compliant, advertiser-grade solutions. The study evaluates methodological strengths and limitations, requirements for scale and adoption, and practical steps needed to achieve consistent, deduplicated measurement across television, CTV, streaming, digital and social media while meeting European privacy and regulatory standards.

When: The initiative was announced on January 15, 2026. The review timeline and expected completion date were not specified in the announcement.

Where: The study focuses on cross-media measurement approaches across Europe, examining solutions including Origin in the UK (based on WFA's Halo framework), panel-based Joint Industry Committee systems, and agency or vendor-led technical frameworks. European markets face diverse regulatory environments, media ownership structures and measurement infrastructures.

Why: Cross-media measurement remains technically complex and operationally expensive despite multiple emerging solutions. Data silos, varying methodologies, regulatory constraints and uncertain commercial models create challenges for the industry. The lack of standardized measurement complicates budget allocation decisions, campaign planning and performance evaluation for advertisers operating across European markets. The study aims to facilitate alignment and understanding about prospects for cross-media measurement in Europe, meaningful differences between available solutions, and challenges and priorities ahead.