Geo-X measurement initiative from ITV
May 26, 2023
By Colin Mann
UK commercial broadcaster ITV has unveiled a service designed to help brands build robust, accurate measurements of the outcomes from TV advertising, across multiple metrics on both regional and national campaigns.
Unveiled on stage at the ITV Showcase in Manchester, and created by ITV AdLabs, Geo-X by ITV provides tools, analysis and data to advertisers to run geo experiments to prove the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns against an unprecedented number of campaign outcomes, with ITV’s regional footprint creating a unique ability to apply different weights of advertising to a set of geographic test and control areas.
Geographic experiments are the strongest evidence available to marketers of the effectiveness of above the line campaigns and Geo-X by ITV uses regional tests to reveal the hidden effects of TV. It is a free measurement consultancy for all ITV advertisers, no matter how big or small their campaigns, and will be entirely scaleable including self-serve options.
Geo-X by ITV locates advertisers’ sales and web traffic data with more accuracy than has been possible before, including modelling and adjusting for IP address geolocation accuracy. It analyses multiple KPIs including sales, visits, sources of web traffic, search, demographic response and brand tracking metrics to produce a fully rounded view of the outcomes from TV advertising.
ITV Adlabs has created what it says is a best-in-class geolocation resource for UK postcodes, Google Analytics location data and Google search marketing areas. It is able to account for the overlaps in TV regions when analysing responses, removing ‘grey areas’ between TV regions in store sales or in customer delivery data, to achieve true test and control.
“Since its launch ITV has always given advertisers the opportunity to target by region, but it has been difficult to express digital data in a way that is aligned to TV regions,” explains Kate Waters, ITV Director of Strategy and Planning. “We are on a mission to make sure TV regional testing is done with the same level of rigour as our digital competitors – hence the launch of Geo-X by ITV. We estimate that if brands use all the tools and data we now have, their geo tests could be up to twice as sensitive at finding the value that telly creates.”