Group Aims to Define a Click

The Interactive Advertising Bureau, along with the Media Rating Council, formed a Click Measurement Working Group to create a set of click measurement guidelines.

Once decided, these guidelines will offer an industry-accepted definition of a click, becoming a standard against which clicks are measurement and counted. Invalid and fraudulent clicks also will be identified in this description.

The IAB, New York, said the guidelines would develop an industry-led auditing and certification recommendation for any company or entity involved with performance-based marketing in search engines, ad networks, third-party ad servers or firms that count clicks as a media currency.

The working group includes executives from IAC Corp.'s Ask.com, Google Inc., LookSmart, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The group is open to all IAB members.

Consistent, reliable measurement of clicks is part of the IAB's overall Global Measurement Guidelines initiative. The goal is to bring transparency and accountability to interactive advertising.