How the FIAM audience measurement works
Compared to classic digital analytics where the systems count unique browsers, devices or apps, the FIAM solution is able to provide true net reach in terms of people. The method is based on a large national panel, which is used to create deterministic and probabilistic device graphs with vast census data, consisting of over 90% of Finnish online media usage. The FIAM panel is carefully weighted against the Eurostat data regarding the internet usage of the Finnish population.
In addition to the panel, the measurement census data is collected from participating sites and apps with tags and SDKs, practically on every page load. The data collection works on all devices, operating systems, and browsers.
How is the net reach calculated in FIAM?
The panel provides the demographic information, and the deterministic device graph with the help of all panel page view data from all participating sites and apps. The frequency data and the panel sample is then used to provide the reach calculation for all participating publishers, or any combination thereof.
The more detailed description of the reach calculation model, as well as information on how the data collection works in practice, can be found in the methodology description document provided by AudienceProject.
What is the FIAM panel like?
The AudienceProject panel used in the FIAM measurement is significantly different from any other solution used in Finland earlier. The panel participants don’t need to install any tracking software on any of their devices. Instead, the panelists consent to the measurement and are passively monitored using email activation, device id’s, cookies, IP addresses and the combination of these. The active panel size is in the range of 50 000 participants, and the method of recruitment makes sure there’s no self-selection to the panel. As part of the sign-up process, nine background variables are asked and attached to the participant and used in also weighting and quality control of the panel.
How is the bot traffic handled in the FIAM measurement?
The bot traffic is filtered out using the IAB standard for bot traffic exclusion.
What device types are part of the measurement?
From autumn 2022 onwards, practically all internet-enabled devices and applications are part of the FIAM measurement. During the first AudienceProject contract period (2020-22), smart tv devices (publishers’ big screen video applications) were out of the scope, but they have been added during the setup of FIAM2.0 in 2022.
What’s the purpose of FIAM in advertising and planning?
FIAM is a joint industry standard created for the analysis of publisher online audiences. It is a trustworthy and comparable set of data, to be used both by the publishers and the advertisers.
The audience data can be generally used in estimating true net reach and user profile of sites, services and applications.
The FIAM data is also used in calibrating the results of other audience research initiatives, such as the online reach data for National Readership Survey (KMT) in Finland.
How and when is FIAM data published?
The validated and reviewed data is published every week in the dashboard results section of the FIAM website. The release of the previous week’s results happens every Thursday.
In addition to the public listings, the paying members of the FIAM community have access to the daily figures, plus user interface and the API to analyze market data in more detail.
FIAM Client Committee
The Client Committee acts as the operative lead and the voice of the publisher community, in the spirit of a Joint Industry Committee (JIC). All members of the FIAM community are entitled to name a representative to the Client Committee. In addition to the publisher members, the media agencies and advertisers both have a seat in the committee. The task of the FIAM Client Committee is to promote the usage of online audience data, decide on the future development and set standards for the audience measurement in Finland.
FIAM Technical Committee
FIAM also has a Technical Committee responsible for the technical implementation of the measurement within the participating publishers. The representatives are named by the publishers, and usually are digital analysts, data engineers or data scientists.