Nielsen Ad Intel Italy adds CTV tracking for Netflix and Disney+

The integration of CTV data into Nielsen Ad Intel Italy provides agencies with the granular visibility required to manage fragmented media budgets in a maturing digital market. As ad-supported tiers from global streamers gain traction, domestic broadcasters like RaiPlay and Mediaset Infinity face increased pressure to justify their share of the Italian advertising pie. This launch signals a broader shift toward unified cross-platform measurement as the industry moves away from siloed reporting. Watch for Nielsen to finalize its EMEA footprint with the upcoming France launch to provide a standardized view of European CTV investment trends.

Nielsen has been systematically building out its CTV measurement infrastructure across Europe, with Italy representing a key milestone in that expansion. In early 2025, Nielsen launched its Ad Intel CTV tracking in the United Kingdom, covering platforms including Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video, establishing a template for the Italian rollout. The UK launch gave agencies their first standardized view of CTV ad investment alongside linear TV benchmarks, a capability that Italian marketers have lacked until now. Nielsen's broader strategy positions Ad Intel as a unified cross-platform competitive intelligence tool, with the company announcing plans to extend CTV ad spend tracking into France by late 2026, completing a major Western European footprint.

The business case for CTV ad measurement in Italy is driven by rapid growth in ad-supported streaming tiers. Netflix reported that its ad-supported plan reached 94 million monthly active users globally by May 2025, up from 70 million in November 2024, signaling accelerating advertiser demand for inventory on the platform. In Italy specifically, DAZN secured exclusive Serie A broadcast rights through 2029 in a deal valued at approximately 1.2 billion euros per season, making it a dominant CTV advertising surface in the market. Meanwhile, Mediaset reported that its Infinity+ streaming service grew its advertising revenue by 28% year over year in Q1 2025, underscoring the competitive pressure domestic broadcasters face as global streamers capture Italian ad budgets.

On the technical side, Nielsen's CTV measurement methodology relies on its proprietary panel and census-level data integration. Nielsen's 2025 Annual Marketing Report found that CTV ad spend grew 22% globally in 2024, outpacing all other digital video formats, with programmatic CTV transactions accounting for an increasing share of that growth. The measurement challenge remains significant: a 2025 study by the IAB Europe found that 61% of European advertisers still lack a unified view of CTV performance across platforms, citing fragmented reporting from walled-garden platforms as the primary barrier. Nielsen's Ad Intel expansion into Italy directly addresses this gap by providing a third-party benchmark that normalizes spend data across Netflix, YouTube, DAZN, and domestic services into a single competitive view.