Dive Brief:

• The IAB Tech Lab Tool Repository made its first acquisition with Integral Ad Science’s (IAS) Mobile Verification Open-Source Software Development Kit (SDK), per an organization blog post. Through the acquisition, the IAB Tech Lab will take over governance of the mobile in-app measurability tool.
• After taking over governance of the tool the IAB Tech Lab will work with IAS, alongside representatives of Ansible, Conversant, Google, InMobi, Lenovo, Médiamétrie, Moat, MoPub, OpenX, and The Trade Desk, as well as the 4A’s and the Media Rating Council to develop the SDK and will be open to other member companies taking part in the initiative via the IAB Tech Lab Coalition for Open Measurement.
• The tool was introduced to the marketplace by IAS last year and will allow app publishers to measure mobile inventory without having to integrate multiple SDKs from different partners.

Dive Insight:

Measurement is a key focus for the digital marketing industry in 2017 following a year that saw a series of revelations from key platforms regarding wrong metrics. As digital investments continue to grow, accurate measurements are necessary to assess the return on investment and begin to orchestrate integrated branded experiences that flow seamlessly across multiple channels. 

The new tool should be particularly welcome as measuring mobile inventory inside apps can be challenging while becoming increasingly important to overall marketing programs as mobile use grows. The IAB blog post pointed out that streamlining mobile viewability measurement is crucial to achieving scale, as marketers currently need to integrate multiple SDKs from different partners to try to get a more complete picture of their in-app inventory. 

The tool for in-app measurement is open source and should improve user experience by decreasing the load time when running verifications.