IAB and Mobile Marketing Association announce ‘Mobile Web Advertising Measurement Guidelines’.

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) 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 industry’s de facto standard setting body for interactive advertising since 1997 which is widely regarded for instituting rigor in the digital media supply chain. “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.”

“These guidelines are a milestone in providing agencies and marketers with the kind of clarity that’s instrumental in the mobile channel’s continued growth,” said Michael Becker, Managing Director for MMA. “Our partnership with the IAB on this important project is the latest example of the MMA’s leadership in providing the mobile ecosystem with industry-standard guidelines and best practices.”

“The guidelines are designed to provide marketers, agencies and mobile providers with an industry-standard methodology for measuring the delivery of ads within a mobile website,” said Cameron Clayton, Senior Vice President of mobile and digital applications at The Weather Channel, co-chair of the IAB Mobile Advertising Committee and member of the Board of Directors of the MMA. “By adopting these guidelines, publishers and ad servers will all count impressions in a consistent, rigorous way, helping assure marketers and agencies that they are getting what they pay for when they purchase mobile Web advertising.”

The objectives of the “Mobile Web Advertising Measurement Guidelines” 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

“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.”

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.

For more information at http://www.iab.net>