[REVISED 7-26-23] Enhanced Place-Based Measurement Product Summary

Owned by Chris Luken
Last updated: Jul 26, 2023
4 min read

Overview

After an extensive data review, Geopath is confident it can produce reliable weekly audience estimates for place-based networks. A full year of visitation data was analyzed for over 85,000 individual locations across more than 60 venue categories. Weekly visitation trended predictably based on venue-appropriate seasonality characteristics and was stable across all 210 markets and in large to small county sizes.

Based on this outcome, Geopath has outlined the following enhanced place-based audience measurement solution.

 

Product Description

  • Forecasted person-level opportunity-to-see and likely-to-see impressions, by week (for any of the weeks of the year) or for any customized collection of weeks.

  • As-delivered person-level opportunity-to-see and likely-to-see impressions, by week (for any of the weeks of the year), or for any customized collection of weeks.

  • Audience measurement metrics that are filterable by:

  • Demographic audience segments (including age/gender/HHI)

  • Claritas PRIZM segments

  • [Select] Consumer Profile segments (e.g., “Used tobacco in last 30 days”)

  • Audience ‘home market’ areas (including CBSA and county level)

  • Screen-level (i.e. ad unit-level) audience measurement, with customizable aggregation by venue, venue groupings, and/or networks (e.g., all ad units at location X, all ad units on network Y).

  • Forecasted person-level reach & frequency estimates (based on likely-to-see OOH audiences), by week (for any week of the year), or for any customized collection of weeks.

  • As-delivered person-level reach & frequency estimates (based on likely-to-see OOH audiences), by week (for any week of the year), or for any customized collection of weeks.

  • Integration of forecasted data (likely-to-see reach/frequency at network level and/or operator-level) into media planning tools (e.g., Nielsen Commspoint, Nielsen Media Impact, etc)

 

Scope & Timeline

Onboarding test units

Phase 0: Geopath will conduct a proof-of-concept test with the media operators in this group. Each company will submit between 500 to 1,000 of their highest-value inventory units including address (and/or GPS latitude/longitude), location of the ad unit within the property, and the size of the display. 

Forecasted impressions

Phase 1: annualized forecasts of opportunity-to-see impressions for select age-based audiences (persons age 0+, 5+, 18+, 21+) will be produced, along with venue-level foot traffic (circulation) for comparison purposes

Phase 2: monthly forecasts of opportunity-to-see impressions for select age-based audiences (persons age 0+, 5+, 18+, 21+).

Phase 3: monthly forecasts of likely-to-see impressions for select age-based audiences (persons age 0+, 5+, 18+, 21+)

Phase 4: monthly forecasts of likely-to-see impressions for extended age/gender/HHI-based audiences, PRIZM segments, and select Consumer Profiles

Delivered impressions

Phase 5: week-by-week ‘as delivered’ likely-to-see and opportunity-to-see impressions for extended age/gender/HHI-based audiences

Phase 6: week-by-week ‘as delivered’ likely-to-see and opportunity-to-see impressions for PRIZM segments and select Consumer Profiles

Reach & Frequency

Phase 7: week-by-week ‘as delivered’ likely-to-see reach & frequency estimates for extended age/gender/HHI-based audiences, PRIZM segments, and select Consumer Profiles

Complete data production

Phase 8: onboard remaining large place-based media operator inventory (all remaining inventory units owned by this group)

Phase 9: integrate place-based media forecasts into key strategic planning tools

 

Methodology Overview

Geopath produces audience estimates using:

  • Site mapping

  • Mobile device ID tracking

  • First-party venue data

  • Panelist behavioral data

  • Observational field research

Venue / Site Mapping

The process starts with plotting the specific location of each ad unit and defining its viewshed (viewable contact zone).

A geofence is drawn around the perimeter of the site containing the ad unit, if the display is located in a complex, the geofence is focused on the part of the property containing the unit.

Floorplans are used to account for the number of levels in the building, entrances/exits, pathways, seating areas, and other elements that impact foot traffic in the vicinity of the display. The final viewshed is unique to the ad unit; multiple ad units at the same site can have different viewsheds.

Venue Foot Traffic, Repeat Visits, and Dwell-time

Mobile Device IDs, from multiple providers, are used to estimate the number of people present in the geofence. When reliable first-party venue data is available (i.e., receipts, enrollment, and ticket counts) that data is used to refine the visitation counts for the site.

Location data from an opt-in panel of millions of U.S. residents is used to further clarify visitation counts, estimate dwell time within the viewshed of an ad unit and determine repeat visits to the site (essential for Reach and Frequency calculations).

Screen / Display Exposure and Visibility

Traffic flow in a viewshed is modeled to determine the probability of someone facing the ad unit at a given point in time and having an opportunity to see an ad.

Geopath proprietary eye-tracking studies to understand how people view displays at different sizes, distances, and angles.

These factors are combined to create a unique Visibility Adjustment Index (VAI) for each ad unit.  

Audience Profiling

Mobile device IDs and panelists detected in the venue of an ad unit are mapped to a home census block. Through this connection, Geopath is able to link these potential viewers to census demographics and Claritas PRIZM segments to create rich audience profiles. 

 

Why Geopath

  • Geopath is the industry standard in OOH audience measurement that has been in business for 90+ years and is incorporated as a not-for-profit organization.

  • Geopath is not dependent upon any specific buy-side or sell-side systems; it is platform-agnostic.

  • Geopath’s organizational mission is to service both buy-side and sell-side members in the OOH ecosystem, providing objectivity and promoting interoperability.

  • Geopath can extend its existing capabilities to service the needs of place-based media owners while remaining internally and externally consistent with OOH measurement baselines.

  • Geopath’s audience measurement products are developed in consultation with industry standards bodies and research foundations (e.g., Media Ratings Council, Advertising Research Foundation).