GRPs and TRPs are not measures of TV advertising’s efficiency in bringing more brand equity, conversions or revenue. Instead, they’re a measure of its ability to deliver impressions against an audience. But TV buyers have been using these metrics for decades as proxies because there was no alternative up until now.
Marketers that embrace the new world of TV advertising and measurement think very differently. With the advent of programmatic TV, advertisers can now buy inventory on shorter notice, and they can buy based on an efficiency metric. In this case, efficiency measures the value of every single TV ad that runs, enabling marketers to understand how much revenue, how many conversions, and how much brand engagement each ad drives, and at what cost.
There were a dozen comments on this article – including this final one, from the author:
“I am glad to see this article has stimulated some debate, and I appreciate all of your perspectives. Whether designed to create brand awareness or generate an immediate action, marketers always have clear business objectives in mind for their TV advertising. While I agree impressions have stimulation value that can be measured by GRPs, this form of measurement simply can’t be used to tie TV advertising directly to business objectives of the marketer. Only advanced measurement approaches like attribution can bridge that gap.”