Proving independence
Some observers expressed concerns about DoubleVerify’s ability to maintain independence and neutrality.
The platform has long positioned itself as an independent, third-party verifier, but it will now sit within Nielsen, a major player in the adjacent audience measurement business. Nielsen plans to combine DoubleVerify’s media quality signals with its own audience data, putting the onus on DoubleVerify to demonstrate that it can remain a neutral umpire.
One way to assuage potential concerns about independence will be giving advertisers visibility into measurement methodologies, according to Brad Haag, a senior analyst at Forrester focused on marketing.
“Because Nielsen has a vested interest in proving the value of their audience measurement, transparency—in what data is being used, how data is being used, and how the formulas work—will be critical for calming fears about bias in measurement,” Haag said.
In any case, the privatization of DoubleVerify and its competitor IAS means that both verification firms will now be subject to different ownership incentives.
But concerns about potential loss of neutrality are not shared uniformly among experts.
“Nielsen has always touted themselves as being the neutral TV currency and measurement for TV. Neutrality is key to their story,” said an M&A advisor in the adtech space, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I don’t believe there will be an impact due to perceived conflict.”
And because Nielsen has historically been predominantly seller-funded and DoubleVerify has been predominantly buyer-funded, bringing them together could actually create a less biased and more balanced commercial model, according to Schmitt.
The unresolved question
The combined power of Nielsen and DoubleVerify could also challenge the walled gardens that have historically held outsized power in measurement because they own the data.
“The bigger opportunity is making media channels that aren’t underpinned by the major technology platforms more competitive, particularly when much of the adtech ecosystem already supports their inventory,” said Matthew Papa, vice president of partnerships at TV advertising platform OpenAP.
When it comes to ad measurement, the buy side will ultimately have to determine what independence really means, or what kind of independence is worth demanding. Is measurement independence about who controls the data, who owns the measurement provider, how transparent measurement methodologies are, or some combination of these and other factors?
The bigger and yet unresolved question is how valuable any measurement outputs truly are if the walled gardens still provide measurement companies with a limited view into the data required to generate those outputs. Neither DoubleVerify nor IAS are at liberty to measure what they don’t have access to.
“At the end of the day,” Schmitt said, “will we be able to get apples-to-apples measurement? That depends on, to some degree, whether or not Google, Meta, and Amazon permit that.”
Nielsen’s acquisition of DoubleVerify is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, the companies have said.
