Measurement to Take Center Stage at the NewFronts

Measurement may be a hot topic at this year's Newfronts, where digital and media companies, as well as publishers, show off their latest programming to potential ad buyers. Paul Alfieri, CMO of Cross MediaWorks, spoke with eMarketer's Rimma Kats about a shift marketers are likely to see—the transition from a GRP-based TV world to a KPI-based one.

There's a lot of interesting things happening right now, like NBC's CFlight tool, which tracks cross-platform viewing. There's also addressable TV, which is truly at scale now.

You can do true 1:1 targeting. And because of this, marketers are realizing that all of the chocolatey goodness they fell in love with in regards to digital—that close reporting and granular targeting—can also be done in TV. You can know how many cars your campaign moved off the lot, or how many macaroni and cheese boxes you sold. That's exciting.

In traditional TV, it's Nielsen. For digital, marketers define their own measurement of success. If their KPI is how many mac and cheese boxes sold on Tuesday's, that's what they keep score of.

But marketers need to take ownership of defining KPIs—that's what I see happening this year.

If you're not digitally savvy, you're not going to get the answers you need. What's happening is that marketers are stepping up and challenging their agencies and tech providers. And it's a multiyear process. There needs to be more marketing talent versed in deep tech.