MRC Launches Draft Outcomes and Data Quality Standards

In the US, the Media Rating Council (MRC) has issued a draft version of its Outcomes and Data Quality Standards - the next phase of an ongoing project to standardize the measurement of outcomes resulting from advertising exposure. There will now be a 60-day public comment period.

MRC is a non-profit industry association whose goal is to ensure measurement services that are valid, reliable and effective, via an accreditation process. Its draft Outcomes and Data Quality Standards covers outcomes measures and approaches including attribution and multi-touch attribution (MTA), market mix modeling (MMM) and experiments, as well as underlying data quality associated with these methods.

Key provisions include:

• Guidance and requirements related to incorporating viewability, invalid traffic (IVT) filtration and audience measures into media and ad exposure attributed to outcomes, building on previous MRC Standards
• Definitions and requirements for 'funnel' metrics from interaction, engagement, direct outcomes, and efficiency metrics
• Requirements for attribution approaches including MTA, such as decay curves, regression approaches, determining weight or value and lookback windows
• Requirements for MMM approaches, such as coverage, spend data, modeling parameters and external/environmental factors
• Requirements related to the use of test and control approaches or experiments as validation, in combination or hybrid approaches and on a standalone basis
• Detailed guidance and requirements for underlying data quality, including identification and key privacy considerations.

The initiative was first announced in June 2020, with preliminary guidance issued in March 2021. Since the release of the latter, the MRC has been working with the Outcomes Advisory Group (a large group of MRC members, practitioners and interested parties including ANA, 4A's, IAB and ACA) to produce a Public Comment Draft of the standards.

With the launch of the draft version, MRC opens a 60-day public comment period on the standards, which can be accessed at www.mediaratingcouncil.org .