NEW YORK, NEW YORK (July 23, 2009) — Recognizing the need to protect buyers, sellers and ultimately all consumers from click fraud, the interactive advertising industry has made it a priority to standardize click-count measurement across media companies. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) today applauded Business.com, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! for being the first organizations 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 rigor and transparency in their click-counting methodologies.
“The three largest search engines represent more than 95 percent of all U.S. 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 organizations in our membership who recognize these guidelines as one of the most important ways to assure marketers that the clicks they pay for are real.”
To view the complete Click Measurement Guidelines, please go to: www.iab.net/clickmeasurementguidelines
About the IAB’s Click Measurement Working Group:
The Click Measurement Working Group includes representatives from 38 IAB member companies, including sellers, measurers and auditors of online media. Initiated in late 2005, the working group, together with the Media Rating Council, has spent the last three years developing these important guidelines and achieving consensus around them.
About the IAB:
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.
IAB Media Contact:
Marla Aaron
Director, Marketing Communications
