According to a recent study by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), online advertising has just begun to outperform television advertising for the first time ever. This is despite the fact that many big brands are still hesitant to enter digital marketing full-throttle due to a perceived lack of insight into the depth of engagement with consumers and inability to compare similar data.

Any misgivings that these bigger brands might have could be falling by the wayside soon , and for a couple of big reasons. In the first half of 2010, Nielsen and The UK Online Measurement Company plan to launch a panel of 35,000 consumers in order to measure the reach and frequency metrics using similar methods to those currently used to measure TV and Radio advertising. At the same time, Comscore is developing their own hybrid approach, which combines user-based data with site-centric information from website servers.

According to Nielsen, these implementations will reduce confusion in the market and build trust, giving agencies confidence in the numbers on which they are basing their planning decisions. This confidence should attract more high-end brand advertising into a medium that has, until now, grown through direct sales and search.

These changes should allow online marketers to work with a wider variety of client, as well as to more precisely target the appropriate consumers with each campaign.

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