Counting Clicks

Yahoo! click processes comply with new IAB click measurement guidelines

If it talks like a click, walks like a click and looks like a click—it must be a click.

Or is it?

For many online advertisers, the business of measuring clicks can be frustrating. And since Sponsored Search bills advertisers for any valid clicks they receive, this “counting business” is just as important to us as it is to you.

To improve this experience for advertisers, and to help foster trust within the online advertising space, Yahoo!—along with a slew of other companies—has been working with the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) to develop and publish a set of click measurement guidelines. These were released last month, and today Yahoo! is announcing that it has received certification that its click measurement processes and policies comply with these guidelines.

How does this affect me?
This certification should help you know you’re getting what you’re paying for. When you purchase a product, any product, chances are you leave the store with something in your hand. But clicks from online advertising are a lot less tangible, and the IAB guidelines are designed to provide objective standards around how clicks are measured and counted.

The IAB guidelines can be summarized in two points:

1. They provide definition around the way businesses measure and count valid and invalid clicks.
2. They call for more transparency for online advertisers, so they can feel more comfortable knowing that they are, in fact, getting what they pay for.

If you’re already familiar with Yahoo!’s traffic quality processes, then you know that we’ve had a sophisticated click counting system in place for years. But now you don’t have to take our word for it.

—Malin Kennedy, Senior Manager, Advertiser Experience