Mobile ad measurement standardised

Warc, 15 July 2013

NEW YORK: New measurement guidelines for mobile ads have been announced, in a bid to address the market's rapid growth.

The guidelines were drafted by the Media Rating Council (MRC) with the extensive involvement of numerous members of both the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Mobile Marketing Association, with the intention of providing a benchmark to ensure that media companies, networks, ad servers and other members of the industry provide consistent data to ad buyers.

"Advertising across the industry is complex enough, but once you add a mobile component there is a lot more discussion and industry alignment needed to establish actionable guidelines that work across this complex industry," commented Larry Moores, vice-president for Analytics and Reporting at Opera Mediaworks, a mobile ad network.

Meanwhile, George W. Ivie, chief executive of the MRC, noted that the sheer speed of the development of mobile advertising has presented a significant challenge to the industry.

"Now that there is a clear and specific industry measurement guidance in place, both buyers and sellers…will have enhanced confidence that the performance and effectiveness of campaigns can be consistently and accurately measured," he said.

The consultation led to significant revisions to the Mobile App guidelines, which included recommendations that only client-side counting should be allowed for ads served within mobile apps.

Other outcomes included a requirement for using software development kits to avoid premature counting of impressions, and a clear end-date requirement for reporting or counting ad impressions delivered while the apps are offline.

Data sourced from Interactive Advertising Bureau; additional content by Warc staff