It seems simple, but if you really think about it, what is an ad impression anyway?

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) defines an ad impression as "a measurement of responses from an ad delivery system to an ad request from the user's browser, which is filtered from robotic activity and is recorded at a point as late as possible in the process of delivery of the creative material to the user's browser, therefore closest to actual opportunity to see by the user".

This definition is true in its purest sense, but was defined at a time when we were debating the difference between page hits and log file counts, and there were multiple ad servers accounting for ad delivery in wildly different fashions. Today we have a different challenge: there are many new types of ad formats with a variety of ways to measure and, more importantly, publishers have evolved by creating websites that look more like blog rolls or scrolls of pages. These changes are rendering the old technical definition of an ad impression obsolete.

The original definition simply counts a successful impression when an advertiser's creative is delivered to the web page, regardless of placement on the page, viewable or not. Many advertisers have started asking for 'above the fold' only placements to help combat the counting of ads that appear out of sight of the consumer. Today, these impressions are still paid for when delivered and, as one would expect, if the consumer does not scroll far enough down the page the ad will never be viewed and is therefore wasted.

The IAB, and other similar organizations (4As and the ANA), have put forth a plan to promote a new measure that would only count viewable impressions. This effort serves to improve the quality and performance of online advertising and protect the advertiser from paying for unseen ads.

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