IAB, MMA unveil Mobile Web Advertising Measurement Guidelines

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To standardize key metrics for the mobile interactive industry for the first time ever, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) have released “Mobile Web Advertising Measurement Guidelines” for public comment. Developed with the assistance of the Media Rating Council, the guidelines will provide a framework to govern how ad impressions are counted on the mobile Web.


“Consumers have brought mobile devices into their daily lives at an astonishing pace,” said Randall Rothenberg, President & CEO, IAB. “The ‘Mobile Web Advertising Measurement Guidelines’ will give marketers greater assurance that their advertising messages are reaching consumers on these mobile devices and that’s critical for continued growth.”

The IAB is the industry’s de facto standard setting body for interactive advertising since 1997.

“The Mobile Web Advertising Measurement Guidelines will provide mobile advertisers with a clear way to count ad impressions and quantify the value of their investment in mobile advertising,” said George Ivie, Executive Director and CEO of the MRC. “This important collaboration between the IAB and the MMA provides the market with a valuable tool and I applaud their effort.”

The objectives include:
* Defining the mobile Web ad impression
* Creating a common definition and methodology that will become widely adopted in the U.S. and globally for counting mobile Web ad impressions
* Encouraging U.S. mobile Web ad servers to have their impression counts audited by an independent third party
* Distinguishing between the established IAB Web ad impression and the mobile Web ad impression, and when each metric is appropriate
* Providing marketers and agencies with greater clarity and certainty (via the auditing process) that key metrics used for buying mobile Web ads are methodologically sound and meet the highest standards available to the media industry
* Reducing levels of discrepancies and spurring the industry’s growth by offering  Internet publishers and ad servers a consistent, rigorous way to count the delivery of ad impressions

These guidelines are related to, but distinct from, the IAB’s pioneering “Interactive Audience Measurement and Advertising Campaign Reporting and Audit Guidelines” released in 2005, which established the impression as the standard ad currency on the PC-based Internet.