Ad Campaign Measurement and Audit Guidelines
Measurement Guidelines and Measurement Certification: Overview
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This initiative marks a number of significant firsts in the advertising industry. This is the first time that any advertising medium has developed a measurement standard that measures the ad itself, as delivered to a consumer, versus other media that measure the programming or content. Interactive is also the first medium to launch a “global” measurement standard that has been accepted by the key industry stakeholder organizations in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. Other media (such as television, radio and magazines) use different measuring techniques depending on country and region. These firsts are considered major strategic advantages for the Interactive medium.
This landmark effort was intended to free the market from any existing confusion about how ad impressions should be counted and would provide industry transparency to the systems that measure ads. This last part is a critical indication to the maturing of a 10 year industry. With these guidelines, advertisers, agencies and publishers are better able to gauge the performance of their campaigns by standardizing when and how an ad impression is counted. These guidelines satisfy the needs of the global media-buying community by offering consistent and accurate data.
The guidelines have the support of major online publishers, as well as the nearly 40 major proprietary online ad-server technologies worldwide (see list) and major association in Europe, the U.S. and beyond. The guidelines are intended to hasten the growth of Internet advertising spending by simplifying the buying and selling process for advertisers, marketers and publishers.
Among other key points, the guidelines offer a detailed definition for counting an ad impression, which is a critical component in establishing consistent and accurate online advertising measurements across publishers and ad serving technologies. In addition to the ad-impression guidelines, the report recommends third-party independent auditing and certification guidelines (U.S. only) for all ad-serving applications used in the buying and selling process.
On November 10, 2005 the IAB held the inaugural Measurement Expo. The IAB Measurement Expo is intended to allow IAB members, as well as advertisers and agencies, to learn more about the need for, and capabilities of, the primary vendors of auditing and certification services in the interactive space. Each vendor delivers a presentation, followed by a period of Q&A and audience-only discussion.
The IAB announced on August 8, 2005 that member companies with a proprietary ad-serving technology are on track to achieve wide implementation of the Global Internet Ad Impression Measurement Guidelines by the end of year 2005 as planned. The guidelines address long-standing marketer and agency concerns about the need for a standardized method of measuring Interactive advertising. By simplifying the buying and selling process for advertisers, marketers and publishers, these guidelines are intended to support the continued rapid growth of Internet advertising spending.
2006 UPDATE: Broadband Video Commercial
Measurement Guidelines
In a continued effort to lend efficiency to the online ad creation and media buying communities and to foster an environment of open dialogue on outstanding issues and concerns, the IAB’s Broadband Committee and Measurement Task Force developed a set of Broadband Video Commercial Measurement Guidelines. As broadband proliferates, the interactive industry recognizes the importance of delivering a standardized set of measurement guidelines earlier rather than later so that infrastructure development and business practices can be informed at the earliest stage.
These Guidelines are intended to further supplement the Ad Campaign Measurement and Audit Guidelines released in 2004, which details the standard for counting an online ad impression. Specifically, broadband video commercial measurement guidelines will determine at what point a broadband video commercial is counted. A “Broadband Video Commercial” is defined as a commercial that may appear before, during, and after a variety of content including streaming video, animation, gaming, and music video content in a player environment. This definition includes Broadband Video Commercials that appear in live, archived, and downloadable streaming content.
For more information, please click here.
For a complete copy of the guidelines, please click here.
Below is a status report on companies that have either completed the auditing and certification process or have committed to a deadline to do so. Those companies that have completed the process are now in complete compliance with the measurement guidelines.
| Company Name | Committed | Completed |
| GROUP 1 | ||
| Adify |  |
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| ADTECH US, Inc. | |
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| AOL | |
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| Atlas | |
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| Burst Media's AdConductor | |
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| CNET Networks | |
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| DoubleClick | |
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| Eyeblaster | |
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| Mediaplex (a ValueClick Company) | |
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| Microsoft | |
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| Network World, Inc. (a division of IDG) | |
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| Univision | |
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| Walt Disney Internet Group | |
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| weather.com | |
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| Yahoo! | |
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| GROUP 2 | ||
| 24/7 Real Media | |
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| Accipiter | |
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| AdShuffle | |
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| Edmunds.com | |
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| Forbes.com | |
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| Glam Media | |
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| iVillage | |
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| NY Times | |
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| Right Media | |
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| Time Inc. | |
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| Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive | |
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The Guidelines
The IAB's Measurement Task Force has developed two sets of guidelines, one for global measurement and one for domestic. Download the full guideline reports here:
US Guideline Global Guidelines
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Get involved
These Ad Impression Guidelines are the first in a multi-year initiative to develop and implement all the key measurement metrics for the online space, including Click measurement, Rich Media measurement, Broadband Video measurement, Unique User counts and more. If you are interested in participating in the IAB's Measurement Task Force which continues to work on global definitions of additional key metrics, please contact Erica DeLorenzo at erica@iab.net or 212 380 4728.
FAQs
These frequently asked questions are intended to help you better understand the measurement guidelines and the auditing and certification process. If there is information that is not addressed in these FAQs or in the guidelines themselves, please contact erica@iab.net
1. When were the Measurement Guidelines first published and by whom?
The IAB, in conjunction with a dozen other global advertising, marketer and internet associations, published the measurement guidelines in November 2004. The IAB Measurement Task Force together with a global consortium of leading bodies within the advertising agency, advertiser, media and research disciplines and technology companies developed these guidelines over the past 18 months to define a detailed definition and standard for global online ad impression measurement.
2. What do the Measurement Guidelines address?
These guidelines offer a detailed definition for counting an online ad impression, the primary currency of the Interactive medium, which is a critical component in establishing consistent and accurate online advertising measurements across publishers and ad serving technologies in the US and around the world.
The guidelines address long-standing marketer and agency concerns about the need for a standardized method of measuring Interactive advertising. By simplifying the buying and selling process for advertisers, marketers and publishers, these guidelines are intended to hasten the growth of Internet advertising spending.
3. Do these guidelines address the measurement of Click measurement, Broadband Video, Rich Media or other key metrics?
No, these measurement guidelines were specifically created to measure impressions related to display advertising. The development of measurement guidelines for the other forms of interactive advertising including rich media, performance priced (click) and broadband are all in process. The current guidelines are part of a multi-year initiative for the IAB to create world class standards for advertising measurement and accountability.
Specifically, the IAB Broadband Committee is in the midst of developing Broadband Video Ad Measurement Guidelines and the IABs Measurement Task Force (MTF) is developing consistent Click Measurement Guidelines. In short order, the IAB will begin work on Rich Media Measurement and more.
4. How come only some companies in the Interactive space have been either certified or committed to the process while others have not? Is there a specific rollout plan for certification?
The IABs Measurement Task Force (MTF) agreed that the first companies to seek Certification should be those with a proprietary ad-serving technology used in the buying and selling process of interactive advertising. The guidelines further recommend that these ad-serving applications be certified compliant with the guidelines at a minimum annually.
In addition select publishers have chosen to take a leadership position to be among the first to be certified or to commit to a date for certification. This solidifies their and the industrys commitment that Interactive will be the most accountable mainstream medium.
Based on advertiser and agency demands and as this becomes the accepted industry standard, the IAB expects that additional companies will be audited and certified over time, much the same as this occurs in all other media. Like with other media, there will be smaller entities that choose not to get audited. This becomes a business decision that each individual company will need to make.
The IAB encourages all counting providers in the industry to undergo peer review and provide transparency in how their numbers are reached for the continued growth of the industry.
5. Why were the Guidelines created?
These guidelines were created to address long-standing marketer and agency concerns about the need for a standardized method of measuring Interactive advertising and a certification of those counts. Surveys conducted over the past five years with these constituencies identified measurement as a top 3 item regarding their hesitancy to spend media funds in the Interactive medium.
In August, 2003, the AAAAs and the ANA specifically requested that the IAB, as the trade association for the sellers of interactive media, develop a plan to address and resolve this issue. As a result, the IAB created a Measurement Task Force that consisted of publishers, technology providers, networks and vendors to research, refine and approve both the US and Global Interactive Audience Measurement and Advertising Campaign Reporting and Audit Guidelines.
6. How do these measurement guidelines (the measurement of interactive) differ from the measurement of other media?
This is the first time that any advertising medium has developed a measurement standard that measures the ad itself, as delivered to a consumer, versus other media that measure the programming or content. Television, for example, measures the average quarter hour of program via either the much preferred passive measurement of a people meter or in some cases, the low-tech diary method where a consumer has to record what they see. Radio has a similar method to this low-tech diary method.. Magazines also only measure what a person claims to have read in a particular issue with no true indication that they actually viewed the ad itself.
Interactive is also the first medium to launch a global measurement standard that has been accepted by all the key industry stakeholder organizations in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. Other media (such as television, radio and magazines) use different measuring techniques depending on country and region.
7. Will the Guidelines eliminate discrepancies?
All the experts agree that these guidelines should significantly reduce discrepancies but most likely will not eliminate them entirely. However, this is a CRITICAL first step in efforts to greatly reduce the discrepancies of counts between systems.
By using only certified numbers for billing purposes through the implementation and adoption of these guidelines the operational costs of discrepancies will be greatly reduced. These guidelines are also intended to eliminate the dispute about of discrepancies in the impressions served.
If multiple entities (the publisher and its ad server and the agency/third party ad server for example) in a transaction are certified, then the parties need to agree up front as to which numbers will be used in the billing process for that particular campaign and abide by their agreement once the advertising has run.
The IAB and AAAAs urge agencies and publishers to follow these guidelines in an effort to streamline the billing process.
8. Who will enforce these Guidelines?
The market place, which includes agencies and advertisers, will enforce the guidelines. With wider adoption and implementation, these guidelines will become the standard against which agencies and advertisers buy and pay for online advertising.
9. Who was involved in the development of the US & Global Measurement Guidelines?
A global consortium of leading bodies within the advertising agency, advertiser, media and research disciplines were actively involved in the development of both the US and Global guidelines. The specific companies that were involved include:
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U.S. ( * = non-publisher)
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International Ad Servers
Other Participants
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10. What is the auditing and certification process?
Auditing and Certification is a standard operating procedure for every advertising medium. Magazines, for example, use a circulation process that is conducted by ABC, for TV & Radio it is an audit by Ernst & Young of Nielsen or Arbitron with oversight from the MRC (the Media Ratings Council), and so on.
The process of auditing and certification is critical to ensuring consistency and trust in a medium. For years, advertisers and agencies have been concerned that the Interactive medium did not have these essential components in place. This concern has been further exacerbated by the discrepancies that have resulted from different counting methodologies by the various ad serving technologies as well as the complexity of these technologies.
The Interactive industrys challenge is that there is no centralized measurement body as exists in the simple measurements of the other media. We are further challenged by the fact that the guidelines cover both the technology and the processes for executing ad buys. Therefore, because all this is handled at the publisher or agency level, each of those entities need to get audited and certified.
Again this raises the question, does everyone need to get audited and certified. That is a business decision that each needs to make. The questions that arise around that are 1) will those numbers be used for billing, 2) do you need to be consistent with other systems and 3) do you have a client or partner that needs to have proof of performance.
Auditing Third-party independent auditing is encouraged for all ad-serving applications used in the buying and selling process. This auditing is recommended to include both counting methods and processing/controls. Counting method procedures generally include a basic process review and risk analysis to understand the measurement methods, analytical review, transaction authentication, validation of filtration procedures and measurement recalculations. Process auditing includes examination of the adequacy of site or ad-server applied filtration techniques.
US Certification Recommendation All ad-serving applications used in the buying and selling process are recommended to be certified as compliant with the Guidelines at minimum annually. This recommendation is strongly supported by the AAAA and other members of the buying community, for consideration of measurements as currency.
11. How do Spiders & Robots factor into the auditing process?
One of the main determinants of actual impression counts is the impact that non human activity may have on the ad serving process. In the past, it is believed that this contributed to wide swings of up to 40% in impression counts.
The IABs MTF made a decision to provide the best filtering of non human activity possible to provide more accurate counts of valuable consumer interaction with the ads. That non human activity is filtered in two ways, one is from Behavioral filtering (see the guidelines) and the other is using a list of known Spiders & Bots to filter that activity.
The IAB has contracted with IM Services to work with ABCE in Europe to develop a single global Spiders & Bots filtering list. That list includes 300 or more of the most frequently seen Spiders & Bots activity on the net. It is overseen by an industry committee that will work with IM Services to manage that list and make additions and deletions as needed.
That list and more about Spiders & Bots can be found here.
It is important that you check the IAB site occasionally to confirm that your ad serving technology provider is using the up-to-date list.
This list is also being developed to filter for Spiders & Bots that may impact Page Impressions counts and can therefore be used to filter this activity from a content server.
12. What is the IABs role?
As the trade association for the Interactive industry, the IAB remains committed to simplifying the buying and selling of interactive advertising with the creation of standards and guidelines such as these. The IAB is not a certifying body but will relay the status of its members as it relates to their compliance with industry established guidelines.
13. What is the role of the other industry groups?
Other industry groups like the AAAAs, the ANA, the ARF, MRC and others have all played an integral role in the creation of these guidelines and are in complete support of them. Going forward, members of these groups and the marketplace at large will help ensure adoption and further implementation of these guidelines.
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