Nielsen DCR Destination

Getting Started

Nielsen-DCR is supported on mobile apps and web browsers.

Digital Content Ratings (DCR) responds to the shifting, complex multi-platform, multi-device and multi-distribution landscape by providing comprehensive measurement of digital content consumption—including streaming video, static web pages and mobile apps—across all major devices and platforms.

In order to get started with Nielsen-DCR and retrieve an appid to configure this integration, you must sign a license agreement on the Nielsen engineering portal.

There will be an NDA to sign prior to accessing the download. Nielsen requires you fill out your company info and have a Nielsen representative before getting started.

You must also go through the pre-certification process as outlined here with your Nielsen representative before shipping this implementation to production.

Mobile

To get started with Nielsen-DCR and Segment, you’ll want to first integrate your mobile app with our iOS or Android sources.

iOS

Install the SDK

The recommended way to install Analytics for iOS is using Cocoapods, since it means you can create a build with specific destinations, and because it makes it simple to install and upgrade. Simply add the Analytics dependency to your Podfile, like so:

pod 'Analytics' '~> 3.0'
pod 'Segment-Nielsen-DCR'

Add the Nielsen App SDK Framework

The integration relies on the Nielsen App SDK framework, which can either be installed using CocoaPods or by manually adding the framework. You will need to have a Nielsen representative before getting started.

CocoaPods

When using the Nielsen SDK version 6.2.0.0 and above, Nielsen recommends installation using CocoaPods, and Apple recommends using the dynamic framework.

Requirements for CocoaPods:

Dynamic Framework - version 1.6.1 or higher Static Framework - version 1.4.0 or higher

1. Set repository credentials The first step is to add the credentials received from Nielsen into your .netrc file. Navigate to your home folder and create a file called .netrc

     cd ~/
     vi .netrc
   

Add the credentials in the following format:

  machine raw.githubusercontent.com
  login <Nielsen App SDK client>
  password <Auth token>

You will need to fill out a license agreement form and have the contact information for your Nielsen representative in order to obtain the credentials here

1. Add the source to your Podfile:

Dynamic Framework - source 'https://github.com/NielsenDigitalSDK/nielsenappsdk-ios-specs-dynamic.git' Note - you will also need to include use_frameworks!

Static Framework - source 'https://github.com/NielsenDigitalSDK/nielsenappsdk-ios-specs.git'

1. Add the pod to your Podfile:

pod NielsenAppSDK

1. Install pods

pod install

The full instructions from Nielsen can be found here

Manual

Navigate to the Nielsen Downloads page to download the iOS SDK. You will need to fill out a license agreement form and have the contact information for your Nielsen representative ready.

Once extracted, add the static NielsenAppApi.framework to the project and ensure it’s in the Frameworks folder, and that it is linked.

Nielsen also requires the following frameworks, which must be included into Link Binary with Libraries (within app target’s Build Phases) - NOTE - if using the dynamic framework, these will dynamically be linked and there is no need to manually link these.

• AdSupport.framework
• SystemConfiguration.framework
• CoreLocation.framework (Not applicable for International (Germany))
• libsqlite3

Android

Install the SDK

The recommended way to install the library for Android is with a build system like Gradle. This makes it simple to upgrade versions and add destinations. The library is distributed using Maven Central. Simply add the analytics module to your build.gradle:

dependencies {
  api 'com.segment.analytics.android:analytics:4.+'
  api 'com.segment.analytics.android.integrations:nielsen-dcr:+'
}

The NielsenDCRIntegration requires you to have Nielsen’s SDK jar in your Gradle or Maven repository. You directly download the package from Nielsen or use Gradle as described here.

Manually Download the Nielsen App SDK

You can manually download the framework and add it to your project.

Import the project:

Then navigate to the Project Structure, click on the framework and import the jar there:

1. Be sure to put the jar into the libs folder
2. Right click it and hit ‘Add as library’
3. Ensure that compile files('appsdk/appsdk.jar') is in your build.gradle file (or compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: '*.jar') if you are using many jar files)
4. Do a clean build (you can probably do this fine in Android Studio, but to make sure navigate in a terminal to the root folder of your app and type ./gradlew clean (this command may be different for you).

Initialize the Client

We recommend initializing the client in your Application subclass. You must import the integration and register it with the Segment SDK.

import com.segment.analytics.android.integrations.nielsendcr.NielsenDCRIntegration;

// Create an analytics client with the given context and Segment write key.
Analytics analytics = new Analytics.Builder(context, YOUR_WRITE_KEY)
  .use(NielsenDCRIntegration.FACTORY)
  .build();

// Set the initialized instance as a globally accessible instance.
Analytics.setSingletonInstance(analytics)

Web

If you’d like to measure video on the web, all you have to do is add your App ID in your Segment settings and enable this destination for a JS source. We will load the Nielsen SDK onto your browser.

Screen / Page

Segment supports translating screen or page to Nielsen as a Static App Measurement event. We will translate the following properties to the expected Nielsen metadata:

• NOTE: For web, we will use the following precedence: 1) [category] [name] 2) [name] 3) 'Loaded a Page'

Track

Segment only supports sending track events as outlined in our Video Spec. To get started tracking video content through Segment, make sure you are using a media player that has an API which allows you to detect the player state such as video or ad plays. For example, you would not be able to collect ad plays using YouTube since their YouTube SDK does not expose any hooks into player states during ad plays.

IMPORTANT: If you do not implement the Segment Video Spec properly with key lifecycle events, this integration will not behave properly.

Again, also refer to our Video Spec and implement video tracking as outlined there. We will map the semantic events and properties to Nielsen’s relevant methods and metadata.

Heartbeats

Nielsen expects a heartbeat called with playheadPosition during session play every second until the stream is completed, paused or interrupted (due to ad breaks or buffering). The playhead position is the current location in seconds of the playhead from the beginning of the asset. For livestream, Segment expects a negative integer that represents the offset in seconds in relation to the current timestamp. For example, if content is being livestreamed at 8PM but the viewer is 30 seconds behind, the value of this property should be -30. You can override this and pass the current time in seconds to Nielsen by toggling the Enable Default to Current Time for Livestream Playhead Position setting.

Segment will set a timer to call this heartbeat event (–(void) playheadPosition: (long long) playheadPos), setTimeout (web)) every second in background. You do NOT have to call the Segment equivalent heartbeat event (Video Content/Ad Playing) each second. You should follow our spec and call the Segment heartbeat event every 10 seconds (recommended). While we will keep state of our own playhead position for these background hearbeats, when we do receive an explicit Segment heartbeat event, we will respect its properties.position and restart the background heartbeats from that position.

Playback Events

When you call Video Playback Started and Video Playback Resumed, Segment will call the Nielsen-DCR play method with the relevant channelInfo:

NSDictionary *channelInfo = @{
                                      // channelName is optional for DCR, if not present Nielsen asks to set default
                                      @"channelName" : options[@"channelName"] ?: @"defaultChannelName",
                                      // if mediaURL is not available, Nielsen expects an empty value
                                      @"mediaURL" : options[@"mediaUrl"] ?: @""
                                      };
(void) play: (id) channelInfo;

From there we will map to the relevant events on the instance as outlined below:

Segment-Nielsen-DCR does not map any playback properties (ie. send metadata) on mobile.

Web supports the use case of tracking a user switching back and forth from amongst multiple videos at the same time. To do so, Segment checks the metadata on playback interrupted events and sends Nielsen updated metadata if we see that the video content has changed. We do so by storing the current asset_id in memory and checking to see if the asset_id value has changed.

For playback events, Segment’s video spec expects either ad_asset_id​ or content_asset_id​ depending on whether the video is an ad or content. Segment will default to mapping ad_asset_id to Nielsen’s ad metadata assetid and content_asset_id to Nielsen’s content metadata. The default Segment property can be overridden in your integration settings: Custom Content Asset Id Property Name or Custom Ad Asset Id Property Name.

Content Events

Content Properties (Labels)

Note that iOS and Android expect different casing. We expect snake_case for iOS and camelCase for Android.

Ad Events

The Segment-Nielsen-DCR integration has logic to check for type in case of a preroll ad. If the type is preroll, Segment calls Nielsen’s loadMetadata method with metadata values for content followed by loadMetadata with ad (preroll) metadata. Otherwise, Segment simply calls loadMetadata with the ad metadata.

Note that iOS and Android expect different casing. We expect snake_case for iOS and camelCase for Android.

Integration Specific Options

Example on passing destination specific option values through on iOS

options:@{
  @"integrations": @{
   @"nielsen-dcr" : @{
     @"pipmode" : @"2017-05-22",
     @"adLoadType": @"c3 value",
     @"channelName: @"c4 value",
     @"mediaUrl" : @"c6 value",
     @"hasAds":  @"true",
     @"crossId1": @"cross id1 value",
     @"crossId2": @"cross id2 value"
    }
  }
}

Example for Android:

Map<String, Object> nielsenOptions = new LinkedHashMap<>();
nielsenOptions.put("pipmode", "c3 value");
nielsenOptions.put("adLoadType", "c4 value");
nielsenOptions.put("channelName", "c6 value");
nielsenOptions.put("mediaUrl", "c6 value");
nielsenOptions.put("hasAds", "true");
nielsenOptions.put("crossId1", "cross id1 value");
nielsenOptions.put("crossId2", "cross id2 value");


Analytics.with(context).track("Video Playback Started", new Properties(), new Options().setIntegrationOptions("nielsen-dcr", nielsenOptions));

Pipmode

Current state of picture-in-picture (PIP) mode on device. Pass in true if the video measurement is displayed in PIP mode. Otherwise, Segment defaults to false if no value is present.

Ad load type

Type of ad load. Pass in dynamic to indicate Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI). Otherwise, Segment defaults to linear.

Channel Name and Media URL

The SDK is started by calling the play API with the channelName and mediaURL parameters. If no value is passed in, Segment defaults to defaultChannelName for channelName and an empty String for mediaURL.

Cross Id 1

Standard episode ID.

Cross Id 2

Content originator ID. This value is only required for distributors.

FAQ

How do you determine App Name?

Segment-Nielsen-DCR iOS retrieves the application name from your app’s Info.plist application bundle name as returned by CFBundleName .

For Android, we retrieve the name of the application package from the PackageManager.

How do you determine App Version?

Segment-Nielsen-DCR retrieves the application version from your app’s Info.plist application bundle name as returned by CFBundleVersion.

For Android, we retrieve the version of the application package from the PackageManager.

What are the Nielsen-DCR clientId and subbrand values?

The Parent Client ID and Sub-Brand (VCID) values are automatically populated through the AppID, which is Nielsen Supplied. By default, clientid and subbrand are set up in Nielsen backend configuration to capture brand and sub-brand information. The fields get populated from backend for a registered client appid.

Can I override the Nielsen-DCR clientId and subbrand values?

In the event that your app contains multiple brands and sub-brands, Segment lets you override the clientId and subbrand values, to give credit to another brand or sub-brand. In your Segment dashboard, under “Client Id Property Name”, indicate a payload property to be mapped to the Nielsen clientId. To override a subbrand, indicate a payload property to mapped to Nielsen subbrand under “Subbrand Property Name”.

Supported Sources and Connection Modes

Before you start, make sure Nielsen DCR supports the source type and connection mode you’ve chosen to implement. You can learn more about connection modes here.

This destination requires that you use a Device-based Connection Mode for Mobile data. Make sure you package the Nielsen DCR mobile SDK with the Segment mobile library.

Settings

Segment lets you change these destination settings from the Segment app without having to touch any code.

AppID

Enter your Nielsen DCR App ID.

Client Id Property Name

By default, clientid and subbrand are setup in Nielsen backend configuration to capture brand and sub-brand information. The fields get populated from backend for a registered client appid. But if an app contains multiple brands and sub-brands and client is willing to give credit to another brand or sub-brand then please indicate which property value from your payload you want to use to override clientId.

Content Length Property Name

Segment will map our total_length property to Nielsen’s length field by default. If you would like to set up a custom property mapping please indicate the name of the property here.

Custom Ad Asset Id Property Name

Segment will map our asset_id property to Nielsen’s assetId field. If you would like to set up a custom property mapping for ad asset ids please indicate the name of the property here.

Custom Content Asset Id Property Name

Segment will map our asset_id property to Nielsen’s assetId field. If you would like to set up a custom property mapping for content asset ids please indicate the name of the property here.

Custom Page/Screen Section Property Name

Segment will map the page/screen name field to Nielsen’s section field. If you would like to set up a custom property mapping for the page/screen section name please indicate the name of the property here.

Enable Debug Mode

Check this setting if you would like to activate the Debug flag. Once the flag is active, it logs each API call made and the data passed. Note: DO NOT: activate the Debug flag in a production environment.

Enable Default to Current Time for Livestream Playhead Position

For livestream video positions please enable this setting if you want Segment to default to sending the current time in seconds. If you would like Segment to calculate an offset position value based of properties.position do not enable this setting.

Enable Production Mode

By default we will use production mode. Uncheck this setting if you are developing or testing this integration.

Instance Name

You can optionally define the explicit name of the Nielsen instance we initialize its SDK with.

Subbrand Property Name

By default, clientid and subbrand are setup in Nielsen backend configuration to capture brand and sub-brand information. The fields get populated from backend for a registered client appid. But if an app contains multiple brands and sub-brands and client is willing to give credit to another brand or sub-brand then please indicate which property value from your payload you want to use to override subbrand.