As you know, Internet is the wonderful tool used for promoting various businesses. However, the digital landscaping is also very challenging. Certain guiding principles were set by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) which were the foundation for the initiative, Making Measurement Make Sense. The management consulting firm Bain & Company and the strategic advisory firm MediaLink LLC facilitated the intiative.
The main aim is to make measurement make sense in digital and across platforms. It was found that the principles would provide a standard of currency across the digital platform which promotes the navigation of digital technology landscape in a reliable way. The initiative had three main objectives. It is aimed to define the measurement systems which are standardized, transparent and consistent for simplifying the planning, buying and selling of digital media in a cross-platform world. It is also meant to establish measurement governance model for supporting ongoing standards development, ensuring compliance and managing change in a rapidly evolving media climate. The third aim is to drive industry consensus around the solutions. With these aims, five guiding principles were set.
Move to a “viewable impressions” standard and count real exposures online
Served impressions recorded by the as servers are generally used for tracking impressions these days. However, it is the viewable impressions which increase the norm across other media and addresses better the needs of brand marketers.
Online advertising must migrate to a currency based on audience impressions, not gross ad impressions
With the need for marketers to target specific audience, the quality and number of exposures against the targets have to be focused. Their respective reach and frequency of such exposures have to measured.
Because all ad units are not created equal, we must create a transparent classification system
A transparent classification system is to be proposed which helps the marketers to find the best offerings for brand building. It helps to reduce the complexity from a creative standpoint and simplifies the comparison of ad units across websites.
Determine interactivity “metrics that matter” for brand marketers, so that marketers can better evaluate online’s contribution to brand building
There is a need to propose defining and implementation of reliable interactive systems which are standard instead of the click-throughs.
Digital media measurement must become increasingly comparable and integrated with other media
There must be certain measurement solutions to improve the analysis, evaluation and decision making in the cross-channeling market environment.
These standardized principles of IAB would help in improving the digital measurement solutions.