Australian Digital Audience Measurement
Ipsos iris Continues to Strengthen Position as Australia's Trusted Digital Audience Measurement Currency
Ipsos iris: IAB endorsed digital audience measurement currency
At a time when transparency and accountability are critical in media planning and buying, Ipsos iris continues to set the standard as the trusted, independent, and robust source of digital audience measurement in Australia.
Endorsed by the IAB as the sole and exclusive preferred supplier of digital audience data, Ipsos iris has been delivering market-leading insights from January 2023. Following a comprehensive independent audit in early 2025, the system was confirmed as well-managed and fit for purpose—supporting the renewal of IAB’s endorsement through to the end of 2027.
Ipsos iris serves as an inclusive, standardised industry currency, offering consistent and comparable digital audience insights for over 10,000 websites and more than 2,200 apps, capturing the online behaviours of more than 22 million Australians aged 14+ across Smartphone, Computer and Tablet devices.
Key data integrations with OzTAM for BVOD and Google for YouTube have extended the most complete view of Australians’ digital behaviour into the coverage of audiences on Connected TV to empower agencies, marketers and publishers to plan with confidence.
Key measurement inclusions
Ipsos iris is an independent, industry standard audience data source for:
What’s coming in 2026
Continuing its commitment to innovation, Ipsos iris has several key developments planned for 2026 including the launch of weekly audience data and the transition of all audience reporting to age 18+.
In addition to monthly audience reporting and daily volumetric reporting, access to weekly digital audience data will commence, being delivered during the following week to provide a more timely and detailed understanding of audience behaviour on websites and apps. This will enable faster identification of content trends, short-term spikes, event and breaking news impact, seasonal patterns and will support timely comparability of audience shifts and more responsive content programming and distribution strategies.
The weekly audience dashboard will launch with audience data for Australians aged 18+, and monthly audience ratings will transition from reporting age 14+ to age 18+ to focus resources on providing data aligned to the primary purpose of media planning and advertising targeting insights.
While individuals from the age of 14 are more likely to be using personal digital devices, the recruitment of 14- to 17-year-olds for privacy compliant, passive digital behaviour tracking with the necessary sample size and composition that is reflective of the digital universe, is a global challenge faced by measurement providers. In 2026, Ipsos will continue to ensure a universe representative sample of 4,000 on the Ipsos iris panel with multi-device tracking across 8500 devices, directing recruitment and maintenance resources to age 18+. This focus of resources on age 18+ will also support deeper granularity in reporting of age and geographic breakouts.
Opted-in 14- to 17-year-olds on the tracking panel will be removed from compliance eligibility at a single point in time in early 2026 and data integrations within Ipsos iris will be adjusted to align to age 18+ reporting at the same time. Historic trending data for age 18+ within Ipsos iris will continue without trend break.
Into 2026 Ipsos will also continue industry projects to expand the availability of Ipsos iris data with integration into other media planning datasets based on the provision of audience data aged 18+.
Overall, this change will ensure that investment from media owner and agency subscribers continues to fund an industry-standard, trusted, and future-sustainable measurement system that delivers commercial and strategic value for digital advertising planning.
A single-source, multi-device panel distinguishes the Ipsos iris methodology
Ipsos iris integrates a range of data inputs to create a data set of around 500,000 synthetic respondents.
Ipsos iris data inputs include an ongoing establishment survey of 12,000 per year, a single source, passive panel of 4000 across 8500 devices, census data from comprehensive tagging coverage of content owners and data integrations from Apple, Google and OzTAM.
The multi-device, single source panel captures behaviour across all devices from all panellists which greatly improves the accuracy in solving cross-device deduplication, the biggest challenge in measuring online audiences.
Ipsos iris is a stand-alone measurement system that is privacy compliant to current Australian law and GDPR standards, as well as having the flexibility to evolve with changing Australian regulation.
Ipsos iris has been the digital audience currency in the UK since January 2021, using a similar methodology to Ipsos iris in Australia. UKOM commissioned an independent expert to investigate the theory and Ipsos’ application of iris’ synthetic data set, you can read more here.
Governance and industry collaboration behind Ipsos iris
The IAB endorsement of Ipsos iris in 2023 was the culmination of a strategic review of industry requirements and a tender process to form and endorse industry standards aligned to the evolving needs of the industry. As part of the IAB’s endorsement, an independent audit of Ipsos iris was conducted in early 2025 which found the system well managed and fit for purpose and contributed to renewing standards and extending the contract of endorsement with Ipsos until end of 2027. Source data integrated into Ipsos iris from data partners is independently verified.
Any data from Ipsos iris that is integrated into other data sources e.g. Roy Morgan Single Source is also audited and verified to ensure that it reflects the original inputs and matches the digital currency.
Governance of Ipsos iris includes close and continuous oversight by the IAB Audience Measurement Council (made up of research professionals from 12 media owners) who regularly review KPI’s, panel health and methodology, along with data integrity, availability, delivery and usage.
Ipsos iris data resources:
