NEWS

Internet advertising revenues exceeded $5.2 billion for the third quarter of 2007, representing yet another historic high for a quarter and a $1.1 billion increase, or 25.3 percent, over Q3 2006. The results, published in the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, are nearly 3 percent higher than Q2 2007, itself the last record-setting quarter. All three quarters in 2007 have set new highs: Q1 at $4.9 billion, Q2 at $5.1 billion, and now Q3 at $5.2 billon. Revenues for the first nine months of 2007 totaled $15.2 billion, up nearly 26 percent over the $12.1 billion recorded during the first nine months of 2006.

"The continued robust growth of the industry indicates that marketers increasingly understand and appreciate the benefits of interactive advertising," said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. "Marketers large and small have come to accept digital media as the fulcrum of any marketing strategy." Read More »

Audience Measurement: Pursuing Transparency in Metrics

It has been a historic year for the IAB’s role in leading the industry to transparency in audience measurement. The momentum continued on November 29, 2007, with the first annual IAB Audience Measurement Leadership Forum. Senior practitioners from the worlds of audience measurement joined executives from media, agencies, marketing and research to explore the greatest advantages that interactive media offer advertisers—the opportunity to target audiences with greater degrees of refinement and to measure the results of marketing communications activity with greater accuracy than other mediums allow.

Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB, opened the day by setting out the vision—“combining sample- and census-based research can create a richer portrait of people’s lives.” (See Randall’s remarks from the event, at the IABlog.) Steve Wadsworth, President of the Walt Disney Internet Group, called in his keynote address for a focus on “clarity, simplicity, and actionability” in metrics to spur greater industry growth, a position that was echoed by speakers throughout the day.

The heads of the leading audience measurement companies told the standing-room-only crowd about the differentiated products they offer to the market, sharing their methodologies and insights about the future.
Read More »

IAB Contributes Significantly to FTC Town Hall on Behavioral Targeting

The IAB played a significant role in shaping the dialogue and the press coverage following, the Federal Trade Commission Town Hall on Behavioral Targeting, held in Washington, DC, on November 1 and 2. The event examined how the online advertising market, and specifically behavioral advertising, has changed in recent years, and what changes are anticipated over the next five years.

IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg delivered an opening keynote address, speaking on behalf of consumers and the industry.

Read Randall Rothenberg’s presentation to the FTC Town Hall »
Read an Overview of IAB’s participation in the FTC Town Hall »
View all of the IAB's public policy efforts »

Integration, Collaboration, Transformation: Agency Leaders Speak Out at Agency Summit 2007

From the keynote remarks of Universal McCann CEO Nick Brien and McKinney Chairman and CEO Brad Brinegar to the day’s final forum moderated by Randall Rothenberg, the IAB’s Leadership Forum: Agency Summit provided a showcase for open discussions on the dramatic changes affecting the advertising, marketing and media companies in the digital age. Are there challenges? For sure. But every agency executive who took to the podium demonstrated a willingness to work with marketers and media companies to meet the new age with an open mind. In a world that is, admittedly, complex, the members of the agency world, as well as the marketers and media company representatives who attended, were willing to share their strategies for dealing with the wealth of new channels and platforms.

Throughout the summit, which took place in New York City on November 12, 2007, we saw the best in cross-functional teamwork involving digital agencies, traditional agencies, media companies and marketers — showing how the masters do it now in 21st century marketing. Read More »

The IAB Furthers its Commitment to Online Metrics by Issuing Rich Media Measurement Guidelines for Public Comment

The IAB announced a 30-day call for "public comment" beginning November 12, 2007 on a set of Rich Media Measurement Guidelines, which determine at what point a rich media ad impression is counted. Rich media advertisements are defined as those with which users can interact as opposed to solely animation, and they include such formats as transitionals and various over-the-page units such as floating ads, page take-overs and tear-backs. The guidelines, issued by the IAB’s Measurement Council, are primarily applicable to Internet media companies, ad serving organizations and rich media vendors. Members of the industry (advertising agencies, advertisers, online publishers and technology vendors) are encouraged to read the proposed guidelines and submit comments on the IAB site at www.iab.net/RMM. After the 30-day comment period, the feedback will be reviewed and the guidelines will be finalized and publicly released.

These guidelines represent the next phase of the Measurement Certification Initiative led by the IAB, and facilitated by the Media Rating Council (MRC), and are meant to be an addendum to the existing IAB Ad Impression Measurement Guidelines published in 2004. Those guidelines can be viewed at: www.iab.net/standards/measurement.asp.

A New IAB Website

On November 27, the IAB launched the BETA version of its new website, www.iab.net. As the interactive industry experiences year-over-year growth, the IAB serves as a new kind of hub—for marketers, for agencies, and media companies. Our aim is to make IAB.net the central meeting place for the industry—where you can find news, resources, research and thought leadership from the ever-evolving interactive medium.

Some of the site’s key features:

• Improved navigation that makes it easier to find what you’re looking for
• Monthly guest columns from industry leaders
• The IABlog featuring Randall Rothenberg and other voices
• Resources and research that help you understand and leverage the present state and future direction of interactive
• News on interactive platforms, and how marketers are employing them in interesting ways to take advantage of the full arsenal of interactive opportunities
• The latest industry guidelines and best practices
• And much more!

Please visit www.iab.net and let us know what you think.

Interactive Advertising Bureau Appoints New Executives

In November the IAB announced three key executive hires to its management team. Sherrill Mane has been appointed Senior Vice President (SVP) of Industry Services. Patrick Dolan joins the IAB as SVP and Chief Administrative Officer. David Doty has joined the organization as SVP, Thought Leadership and Marketing. "These three appointments are an important step toward strengthening the IAB's management team to respond to the explosive growth of the interactive industry in the increasingly important role that the IAB takes as the voice of the industry," said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, of the IAB. "Sherrill, Patrick and David, together bring tremendous experience and skill coupled with a shared vision for the future of the IAB and its pivotal role in the industry we are thrilled to welcome them." Read More »

In other moves, the IAB has also promoted Michael Theodore to the role of Vice President, Member Services and Joe Lazlo has been appointed to the role of Director of Research. Mr. Theodore was previously the Senior Director of Member Services at the IAB. He joined the IAB last year from the Connecticut Technology Council where he held the position of president. Mr. Lazlo joins the IAB following an eight-year tenure as a research director at Jupiter Research.

EVENTS

IAB 2008 Annual Meeting – Ecosystem 2.0 – Driving Growth in Digital Marketing

To be held at the beautiful Tapatio Cliffs Resort in Phoenix, Arizona, the IAB Annual Meeting is certain to be a must-attend for media companies, marketers, agencies and technology providers looking to get unparalleled insights into where interactive is and where it’s going.

STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES

	Ad Unit Guidelines The Ad Sizes Working Group is developing and maintaining the IAB Ad Unit Guidelines, and meets bi-annually. Following the recent launch of the Creative Spec database, we will be adding recommended maximum fileweights in Q3-4 2007. For more information, please contact Erica DeLorenzo at erica@iab.net.
	Click Measurement In collaboration with the Media Ratings Council, the Click Measurement Working Group is working to provide the detailed definition of a “click" and the standard against which clicks are measured and counted, including invalid clicks and/or fraudulent clicks. We are getting prepared to share the document with other industry bodies in the near future, followed by a public comment period. For more information, contact Erica DeLorenzo at erica@iab.net.

IAB PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

What is causing your ad impression discrepancies? How much of your traffic is really from your customers vs. non-human agents? Are you filtering with the same list as the third party ad servers and other publishers? Who's really visiting your web site? How are your customers using your site?

The IAB/ABCe International Spiders & Bots List can help you answer all these questions. It is the most comprehensive and current public list of non-human user agents in the world. Updated monthly by some of the largest publishers and most experienced web-audit experts, this list is necessary for accurately filtering your advertising and web server logs. It knows which bots are still active and which are not. The major publishers and third-party ad-servers are using it, and if discrepancies are an issue for you, you should be using it too. Without it, you will never know what is real and what is not. Contact Jeremy Fain jeremy@iab.net if you have questions or subscribe now at www.iab.net/spiders.

Measurement Certification Update

The IAB continues its efforts in educating marketers, agencies and publishers on the critical importance of measurement certification. As more and more marketers demand verified metrics be used as the basis for billing with their Interactive campaigns, it is becoming imperative to take the requisite steps to obtain measurement certification. This movement continues to secure Interactive's place as the most accountable and measurable of media. A number of large publishers and ad serving organizations have already completed audits and certification against the Ad Impression Measurement Guidelines, including AOL, Atlas, CNET, DoubleClick, Univision, the Walt Disney Internet Group, Weather.com and Yahoo! with many more well underway. For more information on the Measurement Initiative or for auditing and certification questions, please contact Erica at erica@iab.net.