Google to Work With Nielsen on TV Data

October 24, 2007; Page B3

Google Inc. said it will work with Nielsen Co. to provide advertisers with demographic information about audiences for television ads the Internet company sells.

Under an arrangement announced in April, Google sells TV commercials that appear through satellite-TV provider EchoStar Communications Corp., and says it is in discussions to sell ads for other TV companies. The Mountain View, Calif., Internet company sells the TV spots through an online auction system, with advertisers bidding the amount they are willing to pay per thousand households that view each commercial.

Google has said it aims to increase advertisers' ability to target their ads at groups of consumers and measure the ads' effectiveness. Using information from Nielsen, Google will help advertisers identify spots that reach specific demographic groups, and afterward track the demographics of audiences that watched their commercials. Nielsen bases its national viewing-habits data on a sample of about 13,000 homes. It tracks demographic data for those households such as age, gender and income.

"The more measurement, the more information we can give to an advertiser and agency...the closer we get to our goal of helping advertisers put more relevant ads in front of consumers," said Mike Steib, director of Google's TV ads service.