IAB to standardise click-count measurement across media companies

Recognising the need to protect buyers, sellers and ultimately all consumers from click fraud, the interactive advertising industry has made it a priority to standardise click-count measurement across media companies.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has applauded Business.com, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! for being the first organisations to pass audits for the IAB's recently released Click Measurement Guidelines. Issued last month, the guidelines provide a rigorous methodology for companies to define and measure valid clicks and identify and eliminate fraudulent ones, establishing parameters for the accurate buying and selling of cost-per-click advertising.

Independent, third-party audits that certify media companies against the Click Measurement Guidelines provide assurance to buyers of online media that those audited companies are adhering to high standards of rigour and transparency in their click-counting methodologies.

''The three largest search engines represent more than 95 percent of all US searches, which in the month of May 2009 equaled more than 13 billion searches. Completing those companies' click measurement audits represents a significant milestone in the war on click fraud,'' said Joe Laszlo, research director of the IAB.

''However, these guidelines also serve a broader audience of advertising buyers and sellers, and the participation of the leading business search engine in these audits points the way for other publishers selling cost-per-click ads to be audited against the guidelines as well.''

''We applaud these member companies for swiftly adopting the IAB's Click Measurement Guidelines,'' said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB.

''We are confident that this initial group will be followed by many other organisations in our membership who recognise these guidelines as one of the most important ways to assure marketers that the clicks they pay for are real.''