IAB Suggests New Guidelines for Defining Valid Clicks in CPC Advertisements

March 17, 2009 -- IAB, the Internet Advertising Bureau, announced earlier this week the issuance of a new set of guidelines governing CPC advertising. Dubbed "Click Measurement Guidelines" the proposed measure attempts to "establish parameters for the accurate buying and selling of cost-per-click advertising".

According to the IAB, the guidelines:

* Define the technical life-cycle of a “click” and outline standard methodologies by which clicks should be measured and counted, including provisions for identifying invalid and/or fraudulent clicks.
* Establish standard terms that will help streamline the buying and selling of click-based media.
* Increase transparency and consistency in click measurements for media companies, ad-serving organizations, advertisers, and third-party click auditors.

Excerpts from the document introduction:

These guidelines are meant to establish the minimum acceptable counting procedures for the media buying currency “clicks”. The guidelines are focused on when a click will count - the actual revenue event. As with all measurement standards, click counting organizations including search engine providers, publishers and networks may choose to offer additional enhancements to these guidelines for competitive differentiation, so long as they fully disclose these features while meeting the minimum accepted guidelines.

The recommendations established in these guidelines provide the detailed definition of a “click” and the standard by which clicks should be measured and counted, including the identification of invalid and/or fraudulent clicks. The guidelines are intended to cover on-line browser or browser-equivalent based Internet activity. Additionally, any emerging technology utilizing standard HTTP protocols will be covered by these guidelines.

This document is principally applicable to media companies, ad-serving organizations, advertisers, third-party click auditors and the agents of these organizations and is intended as a guide to accepted practice, as developed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Media Rating Council (MRC). Additionally, Internet planners and buyers can use this document to assist in determining the quality of click measurements. This document is intended principally to guide the definition and application of measures that are to be used for commercial, revenue-generation purposes, and not necessarily those that may be developed and used for other internal or related non-commercial uses.

Many of the top-hitting internet advertising networks participated in the development of the guidelines, as evidenced by the full list of project participants:

Advertising.com
AMC Group Online Media
Services
AOL
Authenticlick
Business.com
Click Forensics
CBS Interactive
Compete, Inc.
Cox Newspapers, Inc.
Deloitte & Touche, LLP
Didit
Disney Interactive Media
Group
Dotomi
DoubleClick, Inc.
Ernst & Young LLP
Eyeblaster
Fair Isaac Corporation
Fidelity Assets
FOX Interactive Media
Google, Inc.
Idearc Media Corp.'s
SuperPages.com
ImServices Group
Kontera Technologies, Inc.
LookSmart
Marchex
Microsoft Advertising
MIVA Media
Omniture
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
Pulse360
Revenue Science
Scripps Network
Seevast
SEMPO
United Online Advertising
Network
ValueClick Media
WebTrends
Yahoo!, Inc.

Have a look at the introduction and the complete Click Measurement Guidelines (pdf file) at the IAB.