In a bid to become the industry’s standard for measuring the viewability of online display, video and mobile ad inventory, comScore is offering its data free to anyone who wants it. The data will be available by the end of June via a new “self-serve” interface via comscore.com. “We’re eliminating the friction around viewability,” comScore CEO Gian Fulgoni explained during a briefing with MediaPost on the eve of this morning’s announcement. Fulgoni asserts that the industry has become too consumed by debates surrounding viewability and that it has essentially “become a surrogate for effectiveness,” but that he believes it should just be “table stakes.” Toward that end, he says, comScore is giving its viewability measurement data away to any user as a way to move stakeholders up the chain to higher-order measurements of effectiveness, such as “time in-view,” or the percentage of impressions that are viewable, or even more advanced measures such as brand lift, awareness, etc., which comScore will continue to sell. advertisement advertisement Fulgoni acknowledged that the free offer is intended to get customers using comScore data so that the company can upsell them paid data. The move should help marginalize -- or at the very least, put market share pressure on -- comScore’s chief viewability measurement rivals, including Media Rating Council accredited products from Integral Ad Science, Double Verify and Moat, the latter of which was acquired by Oracle for $850 million last week. Fulgoni said comScore’s free viewability data plan has been in the works for “months,” and that it was not prompted by any specific moves by its competitors.
ComScore is offering its data free of charge to anybody who wants to use it . The cross - platform data company 's CEO , Gian Russo , said the goal is to " eliminate the friction around viewability " , as comScore aims to become the industry 's standard for measurement of online display , mobile and video content . The aim of the free service , which lasts until the end of June , is to attract customers that will then be upsold paid data packages .