IAB Issues Ad Measurement Guidelines

In the US, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released its 'Ad Campaign Measurement Process Guidelines', to provide definitions and guidance on how to audit the processes used in the placement, trafficking and reporting of interactive advertising.

Designed to drive greater transparency and consistency in ad measurement, the guidelines have also been created to help the industry reduce discrepancies. They specifically relate to a publisher's or ad agency's use of a 3rd Party Ad Server (3PAS) and its Application Service Provider (ASP) solution.

In November 2004, the IAB's Measurement Task Force, with the support of organizations involved in advertising and research, joined together to issue a global standard for counting online ad impressions. While these Ad Impression Guidelines focus on the technical methodology for serving and counting an ad impression, the new guidelines outline the additional processes and procedures for those using a non-proprietary ad serving solution (ie, an ASP offering from a 3PAS) in the course of a campaign.

'These guidelines help all parties in the ad serving process reduce human errors, which are one of the leading causes of large impression discrepancies,' stated George Ivie, President of the Media Rating Council. 'Solving the discrepancies of media measurement is critical and the IAB's guidelines make real inroads in improving our ability to accurately measure and report ad campaigns.'

Sherrill Mane, SVP of Industry Services of the IAB agreed, adding her encouragement for all stakeholders to quickly adopt the guidelines into their business practices. They can be downloaded at: www.iab.net/campaign_measurement_process .

New York-based IAB comprises more than 375 media and technology companies which are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the US. Last year, IAB Europe and the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) collaborated on the Measurement of Interactive Audience (MIA) project, to develop standard definitions for interactive audience measurement.

Web site: www.iab.net .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.