IAB’s in-app ad viewability and measurement SDK hits 2 billion devices

Out just over a year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau Tech Lab’s third-party in-app ad viewability and measurement tool is gaining significant steam. IAB will announce Wednesday that its Open Measurement software development kit (SDK) has achieved adoption by 17 companies across the U.S., Europe and Asia, and it’s enabled on 2 billion devices across the world.

The IAB Tech Lab initially released the SDK in Oct. 2017 as its first software product. It simplified an early process that involved multiple SDKs and systems.

The most recent version of the SDK delivers a variety of data, including if the ad was viewed, how long it was viewed, impressions served, general invalid traffic detection, percentage in view and video events such as the start, stop, resume, pause of videos and quartile progression.

Why it matters

Prior to the creation of the OM SDK, app publishers that wanted to enable measurement through multiple vendors had to install SDKs from four to five companies — an inefficient process that restricted advertiser’s ability to measure in-app viewability at scale.

“A single SDK like OM SDK makes this process much more efficient and transparent and increases the reach many times over,” said Dennis Buchheim, senior vice president and general manager of IAB Tech Lab. “Also, a single SDK helps implement industry agreed-upon standards across different partners and provides much higher consistency of data.”

The wide adoption of this standard bodes well for marketers who are looking for assurance with their mobile app ad buys.

“With in-app advertising viewability and verification simplified and made more consistent, brands can confidently and more easily buy mobile app inventory,” Buchheim said.

Paul Longhenry, SVP of strategy, corporate and business development at monetization platform Tapjoy, said 75 percent of its inventory is OM-enabled “and measurement is no longer the inhibitor it once was.”

More about the news

• The U.S. companies that have adopted the OM SDK are Flipboard, Gameloft, InMobi, Pandora, intowow, inmarket, Tapjoy, GetDabbl and Google. The list also includes companies in Europe, India, China and Korea.
• The Media Rating Council is on board.  “The MRC has reviewed the IAB Tech Lab certification process and finds it has sufficiently stringent rigor for onboarding OM SDK data from an integrator,” said George W. Ivie, the agency’s executive director and CEO.
• The IAB Tech Lab reports that it will continue supporting the adoption of the OM SDK and will work to enable VAST and other ad formats to use OM SDK in programmatic channels.

This story first appeared on MarTech Today. For more on marketing technology, click here.

About The Author

Robin Kurzer

Robin Kurzer started her career as a daily newspaper reporter in Milford, Connecticut. She then made her mark on the advertising and marketing world in Chicago at agencies such as Tribal DDB and Razorfish, creating award-winning work for many major brands. For the past seven years, she’s worked as a freelance writer and communications professional across a variety of business sectors.