The social media measurement landscape: Challenges, trends, and solutions

Fernando Vega

Social Solutions Senior Specialist
Comscore

Globally, 73% of users access social media around 25 times each per month, with an average daily duration of 43 minutes per user². In countries like Brazil and Argentina, this engagement is more than twice the global average³. In an environment where consumers are exposed to thousands of advertising messages daily and where trends change rapidly, the ability of brands to understand and react in real-time is crucial to their success.

Effective measurement in the digital landscape requires accurate data capture and analysis in a highly fragmented landscape, where social media plays a fundamental role. In this complex ecosystem, comparing metrics across different platforms is challenging due to varied standards and formats. Data accuracy can also be an issue if traditional tools are used that do not adequately handle the scale and complexity of current strategies. Therefore, it is essential for brands to act with agility in decision-making and conduct effective competitive analysis to adjust their strategies, anticipate market movements, and maintain their advantage in a hyper-competitive and constantly evolving environment.

Strategic Adaptation in Social Media

The role of influencers has become an indispensable part of brand’s marketing strategies. Although these creators generate only 20% of the content on social media, they are responsible for over 50% of audience interactions⁴. This disparity highlights their unique ability to capture attention and engagement, reaffirming the value of their use as an effective strategy in an increasingly saturated market.

To maximize the impact of influencer campaigns, it is crucial to monitor their activities and evaluate their return on investment. Brands must identify the most suitable profiles for their goals, optimize collaborations, and focus on the type of content that generates the greatest impact. A solid strategy, backed by accurate data, ensures that these campaigns not only reach their target audience but also deliver measurable and sustainable results for business growth.

With the advancement of automation and artificial intelligence in data analysis, new opportunities arise to improve the accuracy and speed of decision-making. Adapting to these trends is essential for brands, publishers, and content creators to maintain their competitiveness.

Comscore reaffirms its position as a leader in audience measurement, providing advanced tools and strategic insights through Comscore Social. This platform not only facilitates real-time data comparison but also enables the creation of personalized benchmarks tailored to the unique needs of each brand and sector, promoting constant and sustainable optimization in an ever-evolving digital environment.

In an industry where 62% of marketing professionals identified a lack of data accuracy as a significant obstacle to measuring the ROI of their social media campaigns⁵, Comscore focuses on providing a unified and deduplicated view of the digital ecosystem, including social media. With Social Incremental, our social data integration solution available in 10 countries — The United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Canada, Italy, India, France, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina — we provide the precision and tools needed to compare brand performance against competitors and set new industry standards.

Our goal is to offer actionable insights that transform decision-making and maximize market impact, positioning us as a strategic ally in the future of digital marketing. To overcome challenges in the social media ecosystem and optimize your strategy, contact us today and discover how Comscore Social can drive your success.

¹Comscore MMX® Multi-Platform, Key Measures, Desktop and Mobile, social media, Total Audience, June 2024, Worldwide Rollup.
²Comscore MMX® Multi-Platform, Key Measures, Desktop and Mobile, social media, Total Audience, June 2024, Worldwide Rollup.
³Comscore MMX® Multi-Platform, Key Measures, Desktop and Mobile, social media, Total Audience, June 2024, Multi-Market (Argentina, Brazil).
⁴Comscore Social, Global Influencers All, FB/IG/X/TikTok/YouTube, July 2024.
⁵eMarketer, X, 2023, www.emarketer.com/content/marketing-professionals-mixed-confidence-ability-measure-roi

The Opportunity for Advertisers and Publishers in Light of the Recent Cookies News

Brian Pugh

Chief Information Officer
Comscore

The Google announcement doesn't mean a return to January 2020, when the media giant first raised the plan to phase out cookies within two years because much has changed over the past four years. Independent of Google’s direction, marketers’ and publishers’ fundamental needs remain largely the same, that is to serve the needs of their audiences and respond to consumer expectations.

Signals come and go - but the fundamentals are still the same

If the last several years tell us anything, it's that the trend in the market is accelerating towards increased privacy controls and continued signal loss. That trend has already happened without Chrome deprecating third party cookies, and we should expect it to continue no matter what Google does.

The work done over the past five years to prepare for a cookieless future will continue to be vital. We are already operating in a omnichannel reality where many key channels such as CTV, TV, mobile, and social are inherently cookieless.

Advertisers have been adapting to a more complex cross-media landscape where multiple identifiers, consent requirements, and signals govern media spend, and the endurance of the cookie does little to change this secular trend. The fundamentals of reach, frequency and incremental performance remain the bedrock of optimization. This means the demand for omnichannel measurement and ID-free advertising solutions is as urgent as ever, today and into the foreseeable future.

Privacy-forward Solutions

A focus of Comscore’s digital audience measurement methodology is on signal loss of any kind. The modern media landscape has and will continue to evolve – with consumer consent at the forefront, this is not a trend specific to Chrome or any other browser settings. The halt of cookie deprecation allows for the continued rollout of UDM 2.0, Comscore’s cookie-free methodology for digital.

Publishers should continue to engage with us on testing and implementing across the 30,000 domains we support. Comscore is continuing to innovate and evolve to future-proof measurement with UDM 2.0 at the centre of our digital efforts.

We are here to help publishers, brands (and their agencies) with the ongoing transition to a privacy-forward world in any way that works for them, whether that’s via website or video streaming tags, app SDKs, or via Server-to-server data sharing. We work with our clients on where their data “resides” to ensure accurate and robust reporting.

Monetizing in a multi-ID landscape

With most programmatic inventory already lacking a user identifier, the impact from signal loss is real for advertisers, and will only continue to be exacerbated with consumer opt-outs. With or without a top-down cookie deprecation mandate, advertisers will need to adopt ID-free tactics to drive business outcomes. Publishers still need a partner to modernize their offerings for the omnichannel and multi-ID landscape, which Proximic’s ID-free Predictive Audiences and contextual targeting provide.

Privacy regulations are here to stay, and scrutiny will continue, especially in sensitive areas like health and age-restricted advertising. Industry innovation to meet the needs of today’s privacy landscape necessitates privacy-centric approaches to reach audiences.

Investment in Digital

In the short term, advertisers pursuing online cookie-based revenue strategies won’t adjust their investment as a result of deprecation being on the horizon. The uninterrupted spend in omnichannel campaigns means they would want to prove their ad exposures are incremental and that total reach is achieved. This objective is precisely what our flagship omnichannel solution, Comscore Campaign Ratings (CCR), delivers.

Our solutions continue to be crucial for measuring and activating media across various channels. Google’s announcement reinforces the importance of our approach to privacy-forward cross-channel reach and measurement.

Comscore is the right measurement provider at the right time, offering leading opportunities for advertisers and publishers responding to changes in the industry, consumer behavior, and regulatory conditions, which will march on with or without cookies.

To learn more about how Comscore can support your business in the face of changing signals, contact me here.

The future of cross-platform measurement in a cookieless world

Alejandro Fosk

EVP, International
Comscore

The loss of third-party cookies is not just a hurdle; it's a call to action for our industry to evolve. At Comscore, consumer privacy is always at the forefront of how we conduct business. We are dedicated and laser-focused on ensuring that we are leading measurement, planning, and activation forward in a manner designed with privacy-in-mind. Our Unified Digital Measurement (UDM) 2.0 methodology, which is the next generation of our Unified Digital Measurement (UDM), is powered by a new, enhanced methodology that utilizes first-party IDs in place of third-party signals.

It is important to clarify that our shift to privacy-preserving digital measurement is not merely a reaction to decisions made by another company regarding how its browser will function. Our move to this method represents a fundamental shift towards improved metrics based on better principles, which include, but are not limited to, respecting consumer privacy.

Tackling the barriers head-on

We're committed to pioneering solutions that enable us to navigate this fragmented data environment, piecing together the intricate puzzle of the modern consumer's digital journey. It's about harnessing every piece of data ethically and intelligently to offer an accurate, holistic view of the landscape we operate in.

Our recent initiative, the Social Incremental audiences within our MMX platform, exemplifies our response to these fragmented digital realities. By offering a deduplicated view of audience metrics, we enable our partners to navigate through the complexities of today's digital ecosystem with greater clarity and effectiveness.

Welcome to the future of data made simple.

At Comscore, cross-platform measurement is our core focus. We prioritize the consumer in all our measurement efforts, letting their behaviors guide the narrative and solutions we bring to the industry. Our goal is to provide both the buy-side and sell-side with a consistent, unified meeting point that connects audiences and the content they consume across all platforms. We've equipped ourselves with industry-leading datasets, including human panels, social measurement, and partnerships with leading industry stakeholders. Our future-proof methodology ensures sustainable audience measurement even in the face of cookie deprecation. Comscore Total Digital delivers complete digital intelligence across web, mobile, and social with one intuitive, always-on interface, revolutionizing the way you work with accessible insights through seamless reporting.

The Comscore commitment

Our dedication to advancing the field of digital measurement is unwavering. At Comscore, adapting to change isn't just about staying relevant—it's about setting the standard, driving the industry forward, and ensuring that every stakeholder has the tools they need to succeed in a dynamic digital marketplace.

The role of social incremental audiences in enhancing digital strategy

Unlocking true audience potential: Comscore's Social Incremental Audiences redefine digital measurement

Alejandro Fosk

EVP, International
Comscore

The launch of Comscore's Social Incremental marks a significant advancement in this field, focusing on the unique challenges and opportunities presented by social media metrics. Launched in the U.S. in October 2023, it was later expanded in March 2024 across nine international markets: the United Kingdom, Spain, Canada, Italy, India, France, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.

The integration of Social Incremental audiences into our flagship MMX platform represents a transformative leap forward, not just in technology but also in strategy and market intelligence. It provides a deduplicated view of audience metrics across platforms — social, mobile, and desktop — allowing a more holistic and accurate representation of digital consumer behaviour. This new capability is instrumental for publishers and brands seeking to comprehensively measure their total digital population.

Social media is profoundly integrated into daily life across different nations. In Mexico and in the UK, for example, advertisers can reach 80.4% and 87.5% of the total digital population, respectively, as illustrated by March 2024 data. Notably, in other countries such as Argentina, Brazil, India, Italy and Spain, audience presence on social platforms surpasses 90%. These examples underscore the essential role of social media in the cross-platform media landscape.¹

Solution: How to optimize audience reach
Historically, the digital landscape faced the challenge of overinflated metrics due to duplicated counts across platforms. Social Incremental tackles this challenge by ensuring that engagements and views from the same individual are not counted more than once. This deduplication is not just a matter of accuracy, but it's also about understanding the true impact of campaigns and strategies at every level, especially at the top of the marketing funnel where awareness and broad reach are critical. Comscore stands as a beacon in this space, enabling marketers to wield a deduplicated reach number with confidence across their total digital footprint.

Expanding horizons: Global availability and benefits
With the launch of Social Incremental, Comscore reaffirms its commitment to transformative digital measurement. It's not just about adding numbers, but it's also about adding value, understanding, and trust to the digital ecosystems for all stakeholders involved. The implications for international digital strategy are profound. These enriched insights facilitate an exploration of surfing behaviours across all age demographics, with a specific emphasis on the habits of younger generations. Businesses can tailor their approaches to different regional behaviours and preferences, ensuring that every marketing investment is spent wisely. This rollout is not merely an upgrade of a tool, but a necessary evolution in the face of rising content consumption diversity and multi-platform interaction.

At the forefront of measurement
As we continue to innovate, our focus remains steadfast on providing the most accurate and holistic view of the digital landscape. This development not only underscores Comscore’s commitment to precision and innovation, but also our dedication to supporting our partners in navigating this ever-evolving digital world. At Comscore, we not only adapt to change, but we also drive it. We design our solutions with a future-forward approach, ready to operate in a cross-platform and large-scale environment, and always with a focus on delivering quality and accurate measurement in line with privacy considerations. To learn more about how Social Incremental Audience can help your business strategy, please contact us.

¹ Source: Comscore MMX Multi-platform, Desktop & Mobile, Total Audience, Social Media, March 2024, Countries: Argentina, Brazil, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain and UK.