Netflix simplifies its ad viewer metrics
Netflix has announced a simplified metric to show how many viewers its advertising reaches each month.
The streaming service will now adopt a single metric — monthly active viewers — “one that can easily be adopted by others and truly reflects the scale of our ads business”, as Netflix’s president of advertising Amy Reinhard explained in a post on the company site.
Monthly active viewers are calculated by taking members that have watched at least one minute of ads on Netflix within a month, and multiplying this by the estimated average number of people within a household, which comes from Netflix first-party research.
By this new metric, Australia has more than 4 million monthly active viewers of commercials, while globally Netflix reaches over 190 million MAVs.
“Just as there is no universal streaming viewing metric, there is also no industry standard for measuring the overall reach of ads in streaming,” Reinhard wrote.
“After speaking to our partners, we know that what they want most is an accurate, clear, and transparent representation of who their ads are reaching. Our previous measurement — which was based on account profiles — didn’t represent all of the engaged people who are in the room watching.”
Amy Reinhard
Netflix has offered advertising on its service for three years.
In that time, the company has partnered with over 50 global ad measurement vendors; launched Ads Suite, its in-house first-party ad tech platform; and expanded its programmatic offering to include Amazon, AJA, Google Display and Video 360, The Trade Desk, and Yahoo DSP.
This month, Netflix is testing interactive video ads in the US and Canada, which Reinhard said “will cater to our members’ viewing behaviors and allow advertisers to benefit from dynamic templates that use mix-and-match creative elements to drive business outcomes”. These have been in development since May, and will be rolled out globally by the second quarter of 2026.
The company will also roll out a number of targeting tools in Netflix Ad Suite over the next few months.
This month, advanced demographic targeting will be expanded in the US to include options like education, marital status, and household income, as well as the option to target in-market audiences “who might be in the market for a specific product”.
More advanced targeting is coming to Netflix
“This helps our clients tailor their targeting to reach high-propensity viewers, with options like luxury vehicles, travel packages, and dining experiences now available”, Reinhard explains.
This feature will come to Australia in 2026.
Australian clients can now onboard audiences via LiveRamp for easier first-party data capabilities, while a planning Application Programming Interface (API) is currently in testing mode.
The API will “seamlessly work with in-house planning tools and use real-time forecasting to provide insights for marketers to plan across key demographics and geographies” and will be available in Australia in 2026.
“We know we still have more to do, but we’re energised by the consistent growth and advancements we continue to deliver for our advertisers and members,” Reinhard concluded.
“We can’t wait to see what’s in store for our next season.”
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