A1.3 Media Consumption Survey

What is a Media Consumption Survey?

Who needs a Media Consumption Survey?

A Media Consumption Survey is for teams that need to understand where, when, and how their target audience spends attention across media channels.

Use this survey when you are making decisions about media planning, channel allocation, campaign scheduling, creative format, device strategy, or ad placement. It is useful for marketers, media planners, content strategists, brand teams, and growth teams who want to stop relying only on assumptions, outdated category reports, or platform supplied reach numbers.

A Media Consumption Survey helps answer questions such as: which channels does this audience actually use, how is attention split across those channels, which devices do they use most often, when are they most active, how do they discover new content or brands, and where are they most open to advertising?

These are not brand health questions. They are channel strategy questions. If you want to know how people perceive your brand, use Brand Track. If you want to understand where your audience spends attention and where your media plan has the best chance of reaching them in the right context, use a Media Consumption Survey.

What is a Media Consumption Survey?

A Media Consumption Survey is one of the Standard Survey types on consumr.ai. It sits inside the platform’s Quantitative Research offering.

The path is: Quantitative Research → Survey Research → Standard Survey → Media Consumption. Media Consumption should be visible as one of the Standard Survey options.

The survey is a fixed research instrument that maps the media behavior of a defined audience. It helps you understand what media they use, how they divide attention across channels, what devices they use, when media consumption happens, how they discover content or brands, and where they are most receptive to advertising.

The question template is fixed by design. This is what makes the survey repeatable and comparable. If you run the same Media Consumption Survey over time, the fixed structure allows you to compare results across waves without changing the instrument each time.

Reach is not the same as receptivity

This is the most important idea behind a Media Consumption Survey. Reach tells you how many people may be available on a channel. Receptivity tells you whether your audience is open to hearing from brands or advertisers on that channel. These are not the same thing.

A channel can have high reach but low ad receptivity for a specific audience. Another channel may have lower reach but stronger receptivity, which can make it more valuable for the media plan. Media planning becomes stronger when both attention and openness to advertising are understood together.

consumr.ai’s Media Consumption Survey includes an ad receptivity readout that uses a point allocation approach. Respondents distribute 100 points across channels based on where they are most open to advertising. Because the total always equals 100, the answer forces tradeoffs. A higher score for one channel comes at the expense of another. This makes the readout more useful than a simple checklist of channels people say they like.

What does a Media Consumption Survey measure?

A Media Consumption Survey measures five readout areas. Each area answers a different media planning question.

Media Footprint

Media Footprint shows the overall size and shape of the audience’s media consumption. It helps you understand the categories of media the audience uses and how much attention each category receives. Use this readout to understand the audience’s broad media life before making channel level decisions. It gives you the starting picture of where attention exists.

Channel Mix

Channel Mix shows how media consumption is distributed across channels such as social, streaming, broadcast TV, podcasts, digital news, and other media environments. Use this readout to inform media allocation. It helps you decide which channels deserve more attention in the plan and which channels may be less central for the selected audience.

Screens and Devices

Screens and Devices shows which devices the audience uses to consume media. This can include phones, laptops, tablets, connected TV, or other screens depending on the survey output. Use this readout to guide creative format and buying decisions. A video viewed mainly on connected TV should be thought about differently from a video viewed mainly on mobile. Screen size, sound behavior, viewing distance, and attention context all affect how creative should be designed.

When Media Happens

When Media Happens maps the timing of media consumption across the day and week. It helps you understand when the audience is most active and whether behavior shifts between weekdays and weekends. Use this readout to inform scheduling, dayparting, and creative tone. The mindset of an audience watching content in the morning may be different from the same audience watching content late in the evening.

Discovery and Ad Receptivity

Discovery and Ad Receptivity shows how the audience discovers new content, brands, or ideas, and where the audience is most open to advertising. Use this readout to guide both organic and paid strategy. Discovery patterns can inform content partnerships, creator strategy, search strategy, and platform prioritization. Ad receptivity can help determine where paid media is more likely to be welcomed rather than ignored.

What a Media Consumption Survey will not tell you

A Media Consumption Survey is quantitative. It tells you what is happening across the defined audience. It does not fully explain why those patterns exist.

If the survey shows that your audience is spending more time on connected TV and less time on social media, it tells you that the pattern exists. It does not explain what caused the shift or what emotional or cultural reason sits behind it.

If the survey shows low ad receptivity on a particular channel, it tells you that the channel may be less open for advertising with that audience. It does not tell you whether the issue is creative quality, platform fatigue, category fit, message relevance, or another factor.

When you need to understand the why behind the pattern, use consumr.ai’s qualitative tools. Quantitative Research shows the pattern. Qualitative Research explains what may be driving it.

Why Media Consumption Surveys matter

Most media plans start with reach. Reach is important, but it is not enough. A platform with a large user base is not automatically the right platform for a specific audience, and a channel the audience uses frequently is not automatically a channel where they are open to advertising. A Media Consumption Survey helps separate attention from receptivity. This matters because media spend depends on both. If an audience spends time on a channel but has low receptivity to ads there, the media plan may need a different creative approach, a lighter paid role, or a different placement strategy.

Timing and device behavior are just as important. If the audience mainly watches video on connected TV, the creative brief may need to account for larger screens, longer viewing distance, sound assumptions, and a different viewing mindset. If the same audience mainly consumes short video on mobile, the creative requirements are different. Media Consumption Surveys make these decisions more evidence based. They help teams decide where to spend, what format to build for, when to show up, and which channels should carry the message.

How Media Consumption Survey Respondents work

Media Consumption Surveys on consumr.ai are answered by Respondents generated from the selected Segment or AI Twin. For a clear understanding, these Respondents can be understood as smaller respondent units derived from the audience foundation, built to answer structured quantitative questions. This means the survey does not rely on a recruited panel or a third party respondent marketplace. The Respondents are generated from the audience you define and are weighted to reflect the distribution settings used in the study.

For a deeper explanation of how Respondents are created and weighted, see the Respondent Creation Guide or the Standard Survey guide.

Before you run a Media Consumption Survey

You need a Segment or AI Twin before you can run a Media Consumption Survey. The Segment or AI Twin defines whose media behavior you are mapping.

The distribution filter you configure at setup shapes the full dataset. This may include age range, gender, income bracket, and location where applicable. Choose these filters carefully because media habits can vary sharply by age, income, geography, and lifestyle.

A broad audience definition can flatten important differences. For example, a 22 year old urban consumer and a 50 year old suburban consumer may have very different channel habits, screen behavior, and ad receptivity. If both are grouped into one broad audience, the result may become an average that does not describe either group well.

A very narrow audience definition can also create a problem if the Respondent pool becomes too thin. Before launching, check whether the audience definition reflects the media planning decision you are trying to make and whether the platform indicates that the cohort is strong enough to read.

When to use a Media Consumption Survey

• Use a Media Consumption Survey when you need to decide which channels should be included in a media plan.

• Use it when you need to compare how your audience consumes social, streaming, broadcast TV, podcasts, digital news, or other media environments.

• Use it when you need to understand which devices your audience uses, so creative and placement decisions can match the actual viewing context.

• Use it when you need to plan campaign timing, dayparting, or weekday versus weekend scheduling.

• Use it when you need to understand how your audience discovers new content, brands, or ideas.

• Use it when you need to compare reach against ad receptivity and decide where advertising is more likely to be welcomed.

When not to use a Media Consumption Survey

• Do not use a Media Consumption Survey to measure brand awareness, consideration, preference, loyalty, or Net Promoter Score. Use Brand Track for those questions.

• Do not use it to measure purchase intent or concept appeal. Use Concept Testing for that.

• Do not use it to evaluate whether a specific ad, image, landing page, or message performs well. Use Creative Testing or another relevant creative research tool.

• Do not use it to measure campaign ROI, sales lift, or in market performance after spend has already gone live. Media Consumption Surveys inform planning. They do not replace performance measurement.

• Do not use it when the real question is why a media habit exists. Use qualitative research when you need to understand the reason behind the behavior.

How consumr.ai’s Media Consumption Surveys differ

Traditional media research often depends on recruited survey respondents. That model can be useful, but media consumption is difficult for people to self report accurately. People may overstate certain behaviors, understate others, or remember their media habits differently from how they actually behave.

Media Consumption Surveys on consumr.ai are different because the Respondents are generated from the selected audience foundation and informed by behavioral signals related to what consumers engage with, search for, follow, consume, and respond to across digital platforms. This helps reduce reliance on memory based self reporting. It also removes the fieldwork delay that usually comes with recruited panels.

Another important difference is that the audience is defined before the survey runs. The distribution filter is not only a post survey dashboard cut. It determines which Respondents are included in the study from the start. For media consumption research, where habits can change significantly across age, income, gender, and geography, this upfront audience definition is what makes the output useful.

Limitations

• Media behavior changes quickly. A Media Consumption Survey gives you a read on the audience at the time the study is run. For categories or audiences where media behavior shifts often, repeat the survey periodically to keep the read current.

• Channel labels may not capture every platform nuance. For example, a broad channel category may include multiple platforms, formats, or content behaviors. Use the output for strategic direction, and use platform level planning tools when you need execution level buying details.

• Ad receptivity is relative, not a guarantee of performance. A high receptivity score indicates that the audience is more open to advertising in that channel compared with others. It does not guarantee campaign results. Creative quality, offer relevance, frequency, targeting, and buying execution still matter.

• Audience definition shapes the result. A segment that is too broad may hide important media differences. A segment that is too narrow may not produce a strong enough cohort for confident interpretation. Review the distribution before reading the output as a planning signal.

• Media Consumption Surveys show where attention and receptivity sit. They do not create the media plan by themselves. Use the results alongside budget, business goals, creative strategy, platform availability, and campaign measurement.

The practical role of a Media Consumption Survey

A Media Consumption Survey helps teams make better media planning decisions by showing how a defined audience actually uses media and where that audience is more open to brand communication.

The value is not only knowing which channels are used. The value is understanding how attention, device behavior, timing, discovery, and ad receptivity work together for the specific audience you care about.

Used well, the survey helps teams move from broad assumptions to sharper media decisions. It informs where to spend, what formats to build, when to show up, and where advertising is more likely to be received in the right context.

This guide was produced for consumr.ai. For platform access, feature questions, or support, contact the consumr.ai team directly.

How to Create a Media Consumption Survey?

Video Walkthrough

Overview

A Media Consumption Survey helps you understand how a selected audience consumes media. It shows which media types they use, how their attention is split across channels, which devices they use, when they are most active, how they discover new content or brands, and where they are most receptive to advertising. Media Consumption is a Standard Survey under Quantitative Research. The survey uses a fixed question template so that results can be compared across waves when the same survey is repeated over time.

The path is: Calendar → New Event → New Research Study → Quant → Survey Research → Standard Survey → Media Consumption

Step 0: Go to Media Consumption

1. Log in to consumr.ai and open the main dashboard.

2. Click Calendar, then click New Event, and select New Research Study.

3. Choose Quant as the research type.

4. Then select Survey Research and choose Standard Survey.

5. From the Standard Survey options, select Media Consumption to begin setting up the study.

Step 1: Select Media Consumption

1. On the Survey Type screen, you will see three Standard Survey options: Segmentation, Media Consumption, and Brand Track.

2. Select Media Consumption. It is described in the platform as “Understand media habits and preferences.”

3. After selecting Media Consumption, click Select Segment to proceed. Unlike Brand Track, Media Consumption does not include a competitor selection step. This survey is not designed to benchmark your brand against competitors. It is designed to map the media behavior of the audience you select.

Step 2: Select your Segment or AI Twin

1. Select the Segment or AI Twin you want to use for the survey. The Segment or AI Twin defines whose media behavior the survey will measure. If you do not have one built yet, create the Segment or AI Twin first before running the survey.

2. After selecting the Segment or AI Twin, configure the demographic filters. These include age range, genders, income range, and optionally states. These filters shape the Respondent cohort for the survey. Choose them carefully so the survey reflects the audience you actually want to study. A broad setup may average together people with very different media habits. A narrow setup may reduce the strength of the cohort.

3. Once the Segment or AI Twin and filters are selected, click Check Distribution.

Step 3: Review the Distribution

After clicking Check Distribution, the platform shows the distribution of the selected Respondent cohort before the survey is launched. This step is important because it confirms who will answer the survey. Review the distribution before moving forward. If the distribution does not match the audience you intended to study, go back and adjust the filters.

The Distribution screen includes three views.

Population Demographics

Population Demographics shows the percentage of male and female Respondents within each age group in the selected audience. Use this view to confirm that the age and gender mix matches the audience you want to measure.

Income Distribution

Income Distribution shows the percentage of the selected audience that falls into each income bracket.

Use this view to check whether the income profile matches the target audience for your media planning question.

Step 4: Review the survey questions and launch

After clicking Create Questions, you will land on the Survey Questions screen.

Media Consumption Surveys use a fixed set of 15 pre built questions. You will see this noted at the top of the screen. Like other Standard Surveys on consumr.ai, the questions are fixed by design and cannot be edited, deleted, or replaced. The fixed template is what makes the survey comparable across repeated runs. If the same survey is run against the same audience over time, the results can be compared without changes in question wording breaking the trend.

The questions cover recent media usage, frequency by media type, time spent, device usage, timing of consumption, content discovery, and advertising receptivity.

At the bottom of the screen, you will see two run options. Conduct Meeting Once runs the survey once as a single study. Start Meeting and Schedule lets you set a recurring cadence. You can use this if you want to run the same Media Consumption Survey repeatedly over time.

If you choose to schedule the survey, set the start date, choose the day of the week, set the end date, and enable notifications if you want to be alerted when each wave completes.

A recurring setup turns the survey from a one time snapshot into a tracking study. Running the same 15 question survey against the same audience on a consistent cadence helps you see whether media behavior is shifting over time.

Click Conduct Meeting Once for a one time survey, or confirm the schedule if you are setting up a recurring run.

Step 5: Review the Survey Summary

After the survey runs, the platform takes you to the results dashboard.

The first section is the Survey Summary. This gives you a quick view of the statistical properties of the dataset before you review the findings.

The Survey Summary may include the following fields:

• Total Respondents shows the number of Respondents who answered the survey.

• Universe Size shows the real world population represented by those Respondents.

• Total Weight confirms whether the dataset is fully balanced.

• Total Questions shows the number of questions in the survey.

• Avg Error Rate, shown as MOE 95 percent, indicates the average margin of error at a 95 percent confidence level.

• Average Design Effect, also shown as Deff, reflects the additional variance introduced by weighting. The margin of error shown in the dashboard accounts for this.

Step 6: Review the Analysis tab

Scroll down the Analysis tab to review the five core Media Consumption readouts. Each readout is shown as its own panel with metrics and a plain language summary. Together, these panels give you a complete picture of the selected audience’s media behavior.

Video Walkthrough #2

Readout 1: Overall Media Footprint

The Overall Media Footprint panel shows how broad, active, and digitally immersed the audience is overall.

This panel includes three metrics.

1. Audience Media Intensity classifies the audience as Light, Medium, or Heavy media consumers based on how many media types they used in the past seven days.

2. Past 7 Day Media Breadth shows the average number of distinct media types used by the audience in the past week.

3. Digital Immersion shows average daily hours online and helps separate lighter digital consumers from heavier digital consumers within the selected audience.

Use this readout as the baseline before interpreting channels, devices, and timing. It tells you whether the audience is broadly media engaged or more selective in its media behavior.

Readout 2: Channel Mix

The Channel Mix panel shows which media forms dominate routine behavior and how daily media time is distributed.

This panel includes three sections.

1. Share of Typical Daily Media Time shows how the audience allocates media time across formats.

2. Streaming Ecosystem Penetration shows which streaming platforms have reached the audience and ranks them by usage.

3. Primary Content Genre shows what the audience actually watches, reads, or consumes most often.

Use this readout to guide channel allocation and content environment decisions. It helps you understand which media forms are central to the audience and which are less important.

Readout 3: Screens, Devices, and Access Points

The Screens, Devices, and Access Points panel shows which devices anchor the audience’s media behavior and which screen leads video consumption.

This panel includes "Primary Device for Online Video", "Regular Device Spread", and a "Device Behavior" Readout.:

1. Primary Device for Online Video shows whether the audience mainly watches online video on Smart TV, Smartphone, Laptop or PC, Tablet, Gaming Console, or another available screen type.

2. Regular Device Spread shows how many devices the audience uses regularly for media.

3. The Device Behavior Readout explains what the device pattern means for creative and media planning.

Use this readout to guide creative format, platform selection, video assumptions, and screen specific planning. A Smart TV led audience requires different creative thinking from a mobile led audience.

Readout 4: When Media Happens

The When Media Happens panel shows when media peaks during the day and whether behavior is concentrated in a few time windows.

This panel includes Top Ranked Dayparts and a Daily Rhythm Summary.

1. Top Ranked Dayparts shows when the audience is most active with media, such as evening, late night, daytime, commute windows, early morning, or overnight.

2. The Daily Rhythm Summary explains the pattern in plain language and highlights what it may mean for planning.

Use this readout to guide campaign timing, dayparting, scheduling, and creative tone. An audience concentrated in evening and late night windows may be in a different mindset from an audience that spreads media consumption across the full day.

Readout 5: Discovery and Advertising Receptivity

The Discovery and Advertising Receptivity panel shows where the audience discovers new things and where it is most open to advertising.

This panel includes Where They Discover New Brands, Ad Receptivity by Channel, and a Channel Opportunity Readout.

1. Where They Discover New Brands shows the channels through which the audience discovers new content, brands, products, or ideas.

2. Ad Receptivity by Channel shows where the audience is most open to advertising. This is based on a 100 point allocation question, where Respondents distribute points across channels. Because the total is fixed at 100, the result shows relative receptivity across channels.

The Channel Opportunity Readout explains how discovery and receptivity work together. This helps you identify channels that may be strong for discovery, strong for advertising, or strong on both.

Use this readout to guide media investment, search strategy, social planning, email strategy, creator strategy, and channel prioritization.

Step 7: Review the Distribution tab

The Distribution tab shows the raw question by question breakdown of what Respondents answered.

This is different from the Analysis tab. The Analysis tab gives interpreted readouts. The Distribution tab lets you inspect the underlying response distribution for each survey question. Each question is shown as a bar chart. The y axis is expressed in real population numbers rather than only percentages. This helps you understand the scale of each response within the represented universe.

Use the Distribution tab when you want to review a specific question directly, check the underlying data behind a summary, or download question level results. You can download individual question data or use the Full Dataset button at the top right to export the complete dataset.

Final note

A Media Consumption Survey helps you move from assumed media behavior to audience specific evidence. Use it to understand where your selected audience spends attention, which devices shape the experience, when media consumption happens, how discovery works, and where advertising is more likely to be received.

This guide was produced for consumr.ai. For platform access, feature questions, or support, contact the consumr.ai team directly.