Nielsen has been known for years as the TV ratings company, but they have had a presence online too. This week the company enhanced that role with a new online campaign rating system that could help marketers measure the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns by providing them with similar audience information found in its TV ratings.

The newly developed system uses a secret sauce of traditional data culled from interviewing people along with what they call "aggregated, anonymous demographic information from participating online data contributors."

Steve Hasker, Nielsen's president of media products, says this new approach should help marketers get a better understanding of the audience and should also help media companies gauge the value of the audiences they serve.

"Perhaps most importantly, marketers and media companies alike will now have a simpler way to measure the combined reach of TV, the web and even mobile advertising. Reach alone doesn't tell the whole story, however, and Nielsen intends to combine the ratings with cross-platform advertising effectiveness metrics to provide a complete view."

Marketers and other online content creators are always trying to find more effective data points to measure the effectiveness of online campaigns. What separates this tool appears to be the fact that Nielsen is reintroducing the human factor into the equation, rather than counting online activity like clicks or time spent on a page.

Mike Murphy, vice president of Global Sales for Facebook thinks it's a good approach. "We think creative campaigns are more effective when marketers combine TV and digital in a way that extends the big idea online and makes it social through an ongoing, two-way connection. With their expertise, Nielsen can help marketers measure the impact of true cross-platform campaigns."

Nielsen will be launching the tool on a limited basis throughout the fourth quarter of this year.

For more information:
- see the Nielsen press release

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