1. REPORT
THE NEXT FRONTIER IN AD QUALITY:
TARGETING ACCURACY
WHAT’S INSIDE
2 WHY IS AUDIENCE
TARGETING CHALLENGING?
2 HOW ACCURATE IS AUDIENCE
TARGETING?
3 GREAT DISCREPANCY AMONG
DATA PROVIDERS
4 TARGETING ACCURACY LEADS TO
EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS
4 ACCURACY IS IMPORTANT, BUT
CAN IT SCALE?
5 ACCOUNTABILITY FOR DATA
QUALITY
In the last year, viewability and fraud concerns have taken
center stage. Significant pressure has been placed on the
digital advertising ecosystem to fix these issues, and the
industry swiftly responded with new viewability standards and is
calling for stricter fraud controls. While advertisers, publishers,
agencies and vendors have all been heavily invested in
viewability and fraud, one area that has been widely overlooked
is the accuracy of audience targeting. Reaching the wrong
audience diminishes the performance of any type of campaign
by wasting impressions and spend, just like if your ads aren’t
seen or are served to bots.
Audience targeting accuracy is the third component of ad
quality. It’s time that agencies, advertisers and publishers
demand the same accountability for audience targeting
accuracy as they do for viewability and fraud.
INTRODUCTION

2. 201 Third Street, San Francisco, CA E inquiries@quantcast.com T 415.738.4755 W quantcast.com
© 2015 Quantcast. All Rights Reserved.
Audience targeting online is extremely challenging. Someone doesn’t simply raise his hand and say that he is a 35-year-old
male musician who loves extreme sports, photography and hosting barbecues. Factors making it difficult to match cookies or
devices to audiences include:
• Inability to use personally identifiable information • Inaccurate and outdated registration data
• Not capturing changing demographics • Multiple users on the same devices
Because publications reach a broad demographic,
advertisers who wish to reach a specific audience must
apply audience targeting. Even on a publisher such as
People.com that is strongly associated with female readers,
trying to reach a specific demographic such as females
25-34 without audience targeting would result in only 20%
in-target composition.
Due to the complexities with audience targeting online,
specialized data vendors power the majority of targeted
media buys placed through Demand Side Platforms (DSPs),
directly with publishers or any other method. Data vendors’
audience data is layered on top of media buys to guide
which impressions to purchase.
Until recently, advertisers could not measure whether a
campaign reached the right audience. Without oversight,
many subpar data vendors emerged. Now two third-party
validation services – Nielsen and comScore – are available
to confirm whether a campaign hit the right demographic.
Recently, media agency Mediasmith conducted a study
testing the demographic targeting accuracy of 11 data
vendors and used Nielsen and comScore to validate
accuracy in reaching common demographic segments –
such as males 18-34 and females 25-54 – through
programmatic display inventory. To establish a control,
Mediasmith ran an untargeted campaign and found that it
reached those common segments, on average, with 25%
accuracy. Using the average performing data vendor for
audience targeting, Mediasmith found it could increase
in-target composition to 40%. Using the highest performing
data vendor, Quantcast, Mediasmith almost tripled
audience composition to 68% in-target.
WHY IS AUDIENCE TARGETING CHALLENGING?
HOW ACCURATE IS AUDIENCE TARGETING?
2
68%
53%
53%
51%
48%
40%
35%
37%
37%
28%
36%
28%
28%
26%
25%
Quantcast
(High Composition)*
Quantcast
Vendor A
Vendor B
Vendor C
Vendor D
(High Composition)*
Vendor D
Vendor E
Vendor G
(High Composition)*
Vendor G
Vendor F
Vendor H
Vendor I
Vendor J
Control
Average Audience Targeting Accuracy in
Mediasmith Display Study
1x 2x 3x
Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings verified. comScore vCE validation mirrored these results.
See appendix for Mediasmith study methodology.
People.com
Audience Composition
NBC Sports
Audience Composition
Source: Quantcast Measure
Gender
Male 92%
Female 8%
Gender
Male 13%
Female 87%
Age Age
<18 9%
18-24 7%
25-34 21%
35-44 23%
45-54 22%
55-64 12%
65+ 4%
<18 9%
18-24 7%
25-34 21%
35-44 26%
45-54 20%
55-64 11%
65+ 6%

3. 201 Third Street, San Francisco, CA E inquiries@quantcast.com T 415.738.4755 W quantcast.com
© 2015 Quantcast. All Rights Reserved.
Video: A similar study on a leading video platform that tested the targeting accuracy of
6 data vendors showed that one-third of vendors performed only slightly better than an
untargeted media buy, adding less than 12% improvement in accuracy. Only Quantcast was
able to double audience targeting accuracy.
Audience targeting can significantly increase campaign performance; however, many data vendors fail to add value.
Display: In the recent Mediasmith study, 4 of the 11 data vendors provided essentially no improvement in audience composition
to blindly serving ads – only improving targeting accuracy by less than 15%. These are well-known solutions that provided
almost no benefit with their audience targeting. Only 4 data providers were able to double audience targeting accuracy,
with Quantcast leading the pack.
283
216 218
209
198
160
140
152 149 148
110
115 111
105
100
75
125
175
225
275
Quantcast
(High
Composition)*
Quantcast Vendor A Vendor B Vendor C Vendor D
(High
Composition)*
Vendor D Vendor E Vendor F Vendor G
(High
Composition)*
Vendor G Vendor H Vendor I Vendor J Control
AccuracyIndexedtoControl
Baseline
without
targeting
Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings verified. comScore vCE validation mirrored these results. See appendix for Mediasmith study methodology.
Mediasmith Display Test
Audience targeting accuracy indexed to untargeted control
improvement in accuracy vs. nearest competitor1.3x
228
148 148
131
126
102
112
106
100
75
100
125
150
175
200
225
250
Quantcast
(High Composition)*
Quantcast Vendor A Vendor B Vendor C
(High Composition)*
Vendor C Vendor D Vendor E Control
AccuracyIndexedtoControl
Baseline
without
targeting
Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings verified. See appendix for video inventory test methodology.
Video Inventory Test
Audience targeting accuracy indexed to untargeted control
1.5x improvement in accuracy vs. nearest competitor
GREAT DISCREPANCY AMONG DATA PROVIDERS
3
283
216 218
209
198
160
140
152 149 148
110
115 111
105
100
75
125
175
225
275
Quantcast
(High
Composition)*
Quantcast Vendor A Vendor B Vendor C Vendor D
(High
Composition)*
Vendor D Vendor E Vendor F Vendor G
(High
Composition)*
Vendor G Vendor H Vendor I Vendor J Control
AccuracyIndexedtoControl
Baseline
without
targeting
Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings verified. comScore vCE validation mirrored these results. See appendix for Mediasmith study methodology.
Mediasmith Display Test
Audience targeting accuracy indexed to untargeted control
improvement in accuracy vs. nearest competitor1.3x
228
148 148
131
126
102
112
106
100
75
100
125
150
175
200
225
250
Quantcast
(High Composition)*
Quantcast Vendor A Vendor B Vendor C
(High Composition)*
Vendor C Vendor D Vendor E Control
AccuracyIndexedtoControl
Baseline
without
targeting
Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings verified. See appendix for video inventory test methodology.
Video Inventory Test
Audience targeting accuracy indexed to untargeted control
1.5x improvement in accuracy vs. nearest competitor
Because data
vendors’ abilities
to reach the
right target vary
significantly, it
is important to
test your data
partners.
Since audience
targeting
composition
varies depending
on campaign
and inventory
sources, test
the relative
performance of
vendors across
campaigns to
understand true
performance.
* To support campaigns in which accuracy is the main goal, such as with guaranteed GRPs, a few data vendors have developed
“higher composition” optimized solutions that provide higher targeting accuracy, but at reduced scale. The results from these
solutions are shown whenever available to demonstrate the highest accuracy solution offered by the vendor.

4. 201 Third Street, San Francisco, CA E inquiries@quantcast.com T 415.738.4755 W quantcast.com
© 2015 Quantcast. All Rights Reserved.
With better audience targeting accuracy,
advertisers get more value from every dollar
spent by reaching and influencing more of
the right audience. For example, a campaign
targeting females 18-34 with a $5.00 CPM
will result in a $22.50 eCPM if using a
poor-performing data vendor that only delivers
22% in-target, such as Vendor G in the display
test. Quantcast delivers against that target
with 66% accuracy, which translates into a $7.58
eCPM. That’s a 3x cost savings that also allows
advertisers to deliver their message to more of
the right consumers.
ACCURACY IS IMPORTANT, BUT CAN IT SCALE?
In audience targeting, there is
a trade-off between accuracy
and scale. The more precise the
targeting, the smaller the pool of
people available to reach. Data
vendors distinguish themselves
by how well they can achieve the
best of both worlds. The chart to
the right shows how well vendors
can achieve both accuracy and
scale, based on the video study
referenced earlier. While
Vendor A and Quantcast
outperform the pack, Quantcast
further outperforms Vendor A
by providing the same targeting
accuracy for its standard solution
at 1.7 times the scale.
Why does this matter? Without scale, advertisers reach and influence only a small portion of their target audience – not
enough to drive meaningful results. This often leads to wasted spend and diminished brand perceptions as ad frequency is
increased to meet campaign delivery goals.
TARGETING ACCURACY LEADS TO EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS
4
Performance of two vendors delivering 10MM impressions
targeting females 18-34 at $5.00 CPM
In Target
66%
Vendor G
In-Target CPM: $22.50
Quantcast
In-Target CPM: $7.58
22%
In Target
22%
In-Target
66%
In-Target
Low Performance
Top Competitor’s
Performance
Quantcast’s
Performance
Accuracy to Scale Relationship
100
125
150
175
200
225
250
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
AccuracyIndexedtoControl
Forecasted Reach (MM)
QuantcastVendor A
Vendor CVendor E
Vendor D
Vendor C High Comp
Vendor B
Quantcast High Comp

5. 201 Third Street, San Francisco, CA E inquiries@quantcast.com T 415.738.4755 W quantcast.com
© 2015 Quantcast. All Rights Reserved.
Audience targeting accuracy is just as important as viewability and fraud in
ensuring campaign quality and effectiveness – and that advertisers are getting
the most from their digital spend. It’s time to hold data vendors to the same
standard.
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR DATA QUALITY
5
TO GET STARTED, PLEASE CONTACT US TODAY: INQUIRIES@QUANTCAST.COM
Test your data vendors before selecting a partner to
get the quality and performance that you expect. Even
some well-known solutions have poor audience targeting
accuracy.
Work with vendors that have invested in improving their
audience targeting capabilities across inventory sources
and segments. Audience targeting accuracy varies among
channels and audiences.
Confirm that your data partner can maintain targeting
accuracy while delivering scale. Accuracy is just part of
the equation. Many solutions with higher accuracy are
significantly reach constrained.
APPENDIX
Mediasmith Display Test
Quantcast commissioned a 3 week study with Mediasmith in Nov 2014 to test the demographic targeting
accuracy of 11 data vendors on a leading DSP with brand-safe display inventory. The test controlled for as
many variables as possible including flight date, duration, inventory, format and creative. Six of the most
popular demographic segments were tested: M/F 18-34, 18-49, and 25-54. For validation, both Nielsen Digital
Ad Ratings and comScore vCE were used to validate delivery of 100,000 impressions for each line item.
Video Inventory Test
Quantcast conducted a 3 week study on a leading video platform in March 2014 to test the demographic
targeting accuracy of 6 data vendors. The test controlled for as many variables as possible including flight
date, duration, inventory, format and creative. Six of the most popular demographic segments – M/F 18-34,
18-49, and 25-54 – were tested on pre-roll video inventory. For validation, Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings was used
to validate delivery of 50,000 impressions for each line item.