Proving the ROI of every marketing dollar is mission-critical, yet cross-platform ad measurement remains exceptionally hard to do well. As signal loss threatens targeting and attribution across the open web, roughly half of advertisers are prioritizing authenticated channels with logged-in audiences, according to a 2024 EMARKETER report.
As the landscape of media measurement evolves, new technologies like AI, cross-platform analytics, and advanced audience segmentation are reshaping how marketers evaluate impact across channels. These emerging media measurement technologies are at the heart of modern strategies, allowing marketers to adapt quickly to signal loss and fragmented ecosystems.
But, with different data formats and legal approvals across publishers, how can brands and media planners manage all these data variables?
In a recent episode of EMARKETER’s “Behind the Numbers” podcast, industry experts explored how standardization might be the secret weapon that resolves this “analysis paralysis.” The conversation between LiveRamp’s VP of Product Matthew Karasick, EMARKETER’s Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, and Senior Analyst Max Willens reveals how marketers are finding ways to scale effective and responsible data use and measurement across platforms.
Signal loss has led an advertiser flight to channels with rich first-party data, according to a 2024 EMARKETER report.
Key Takeaways
- Standardization is key to scaling cross-media measurement and reducing inefficiencies in data collaboration.
- Clean rooms now sit at the core of modern media measurement strategies helping brands collaborate securely while maintaining compliance and data privacy.
- Brands need partners that provide both strong data and fast implementation.
- Pre-built analytics and intuitive platforms speed insights while keeping them actionable.
Goodbye to the “Wild West” of brand marketing insights
Karasick likens 2025 to a “cold shower” moment for the industry – brand marketers have realized traditional data management practices are no longer sustainable. “We’re seeing a ton of fundamental changes in privacy, cloud computing, and data infrastructure,” he explains. “Throwing JavaScript tags on web pages or producing huge amounts of duplicated data to run your own methodology is no longer a viable path to insights.”
With such a fragmented media landscape, efficiency matters more than ever. Non-standardized approaches to cross media measurement and analytics lead to slower advertising decisions made without complete performance data. Without unified frameworks, brands will lack visibility into how various media measurement technologies can connect, leaving them behind on modern media measurement best practices.
Without standardization, each new data collaboration between a brand and media company requires:
- Custom legal negotiations
- Unique data-sharing protocols
- Bespoke analysis frameworks
- Individual privacy controls
- Custom query code development
As Willens points out, “being in a place where every time you try to add to that stable of partners, you have to slog through a ton of mud… seems like it would drive everybody crazy.” As a result, marketers are seeking an “easy button” for standardization to avoid repeating this process for every report. That’s where media measurement comes in — providing a standardized framework to cut through the chaos and bring clarity to cross-channel performance.
Why media measurement needs to evolve
Media measurement has always been a cornerstone of marketing, but the way it’s done today is being challenged by shifts in technology, regulation, and consumer behavior. Traditional approaches like relying on cookies, siloed datasets, or linear TV ratings no longer provide the visibility or accuracy needed to track performance across an incredibly diverse media landscape.
Privacy regulations (such as GDPR and CCPA) and the deprecation of third-party cookies are also forcing brands to rethink their measurement frameworks. Instead of one-size-fits-all tracking, marketers need responsible, interoperable solutions that can link exposures to outcomes across multiple platforms and devices.
At the same time, consumers are moving fluidly across screens (CTV, mobile, desktop, and social) which makes isolated channel measurement incomplete. This is why cross-media marketing innovations like identity resolution, clean rooms, and AI-driven analytics have emerged as critical approaches helping brands unify data responsibly and enable compliance while still delivering actionable insights that prove ROI.
In short, measurement must evolve from fragmented, channel-specific tactics to modern media measurement strategies that are capable of capturing the full customer journey.
5 key changes in media measurement and analytics
To find a more sustainable approach to marketing insights measurement, brands are adopting new tools to help streamline how they plan, optimize, and measure campaigns across channels and at scale.
Five key changes are emerging that highlight how modern media measurement is evolving, each shaping how marketers adapt their strategies in an increasingly complex environment:
- The rise of decentralized data
- Clean rooms are now mission-critical
- Partners seek both data and agility
- Legal frameworks ease friction points
- Pre-built analytics speed up insights
1. The rise of decentralized data
As programmatic budgets migrate into walled gardens, Willens notes the rise of the “open-ish web.” Brands increasingly manage campaigns across a “coterie of partners,” seeking incremental ways to maximize audience reach or hunt for optimal results and growth.
This transformation requires a complete rethinking of data strategy, from centralization to collaboration. As Karasick states, “No longer will any one party be able to get all of the data, put it in one single database, and do whatever they want with it. Data will stay in different clouds, formats, schemes, or technologies; that doesn’t mean all parties can’t opt their data in to be part of a use case that everyone has agreement on with transparency and control.”
This shift highlights one of today’s most important cross-media marketing requirements: building strategies that span decentralized data environments while still delivering unified insights.
Data collaboration enables companies to effectively bridge those silos, harnessing decentralized data for specific use cases to drive better business outcomes.
2. Clean rooms are now mission-critical
Given the twin challenges of fragmentation and privacy, clean rooms have emerged as an essential technology for responsible customer data analysis. In these environments, embedded privacy and governance controls can allow two or more partners to securely make first-party data available for marketing activation or measurement, while helping to protect sensitive information with a clear audit trail.
Data-driven brands like Hershey’s see clean rooms as the foundation of their modern measurement and attribution strategies, enabling their marketing teams to:
- Transition to portfolio-level insights, analyzing data across brands
- Supplement limited first-party data with syndicated third-party data
- Validate retail media investments and improve media governance
As data privacy rules continue to evolve, clean rooms offer a new approach to insights, serving as the connective tissue between brands and walled gardens, CTV, social platforms, and other premium publishers.
A cornerstone of modern media measurement, clean rooms help marketers make use of their data while enabling compliance. Hershey’s success shows how media measurement technologies can scale across partners and platforms while respecting data governance requirements. As clean rooms become central to modern media measurement, they enable responsible campaigns in a shifting regulatory landscape.
3. Partners seek both data and agility
While measurement is more important than ever, most brands and agencies are still struggling to find quality partners for collaborating, enriching, and modeling data. Willens cited research from his colleague, EMARKETER analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, that explored US online privacy trends and the scramble to piece together consumers’ various data breadcrumbs.
It’s no longer enough for partners to simply possess valuable data or advanced analytical capabilities. As Willens notes, companies are increasingly focused on implementation timelines and operational efficiency, moving away from partnerships that require “two quarters to get implemented or worse.”
This urgency is pushing brands to evaluate emerging media measurement technologies that offer faster utilization and adaptability, reducing lag time while maintaining actionable insights.
4. Legal frameworks ease friction points
The movement toward common legal frameworks represents what Karasick calls “the simplest example” of how standardization creates value. Historically, if a media company wanted to let a marketer use their data for a campaign, each collaboration would require a new legal negotiation to determine scope and data rights. In this piecemeal approach, even the biggest marketing teams struggle to scale cross-media measurement and analytics.
The solution? Pairing clean rooms with standardized terms, turnkey use cases, and language that multiple parties can readily adopt for the most fundamental marketing metrics. This approach can reduce a weeks- or months-long process into mere days. “It sounds so simple,” says Karasick, “but I’m telling you it is countless calls, emails, and red lines removed from the process which I have watched slow things down or block things for weeks, months, or even quarters.”
5. Pre-built analytics speed up insights
Another major shift for marketers is the rise of no-code analytics. Traditionally, marketers have often relied on data scientists to get actionable campaign data. Even teams with ample resources can still struggle to find the best path to insights. Karasick shares a common scenario: “I have watched two parties come together with absolute mutual alignment… And still [squander] several, all-day working sessions of going through the spreadsheets where very smart analysts had put together lists of hundreds of queries that could be run.”
Templated clean room queries speed up the time to insights for every marketer, eliminating the need for robust data science resources to get baseline ad performance metrics. For example, LiveRamp’s Quick Start Insights for Media Intelligence offer what Karasick calls “a set of pre-packaged, pre-baked query and question templates that all marketers need to know to get a base-level understanding of what the opportunity is on planning, what’s working well and what’s not in the middle of a campaign, and what happened afterward.”
These pre-built dashboards include cross-platform insights around audience overlaps, optimal frequency by campaign, and last-touch attribution.
Sample of pre-built queries offered in LiveRamp’s Quick Start Insights. See more in our interactive demo
The new approach to accelerate marketing insights
The marketing industry stands at a pivotal moment where collaboration, not isolation, will define long-term success. As brands, publishers, and technology partners work to overcome data fragmentation and evolving privacy requirements, industry-wide standardization offers a path that balances innovation with governance.
For marketing leaders, the question isn’t whether to embrace standardization, but how quickly they can begin the transformation. This cold shower moment may be unfamiliar, but it’s leading to a much brighter future for faster and deeper marketing insights.
Want to dive deeper into the future of marketing standardization? Listen to the full discussion on “Behind the Numbers“, and explore our interactive demo to see pre-built analytics in action.
Media measurement FAQs
What is media measurement?
Media measurement is the practice of tracking and analyzing data to see how well marketing campaigns reach and influence audiences. It uses metrics like impressions, reach, engagement, and conversions across traditional and digital channels, including TV, social, and CTV, to reveal campaign performance. The goal is to turn data into insights, helping marketers optimize campaigns and prove ROI with a unified view across platforms.
What is cross-media measurement and why does it matter?
Cross-media measurement tracks advertising performance across channels like TV, CTV, web, mobile, and social to give a single, unified view. It matters because consumers move seamlessly between platforms, and this approach helps marketers understand total reach, frequency, and ROI rather than siloed results from just one platform.
How are clean rooms used in media measurement?
Clean rooms are secure environments where brands and partners can combine data for analysis without sharing raw customer information. In measurement, they make it possible to connect impressions to conversions, compare outcomes across partners, and validate performance while enabling compliance.
What are the biggest challenges with media measurement today?
Marketers face fragmented data across platforms, privacy-driven signal loss, and a lack of standard frameworks to compare results. Attribution is also difficult, making it harder to tie exposures to real business outcomes. These challenges slow down insights and make proving ROI more complex.