Open Your Mind to the Open Measurement SDK

For many app publishers and mobile marketers, we have exciting news. We are now officially certified in the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Tech Labs Open Measurement Software Development Kit (OM SDK) initiative.

Back in April, we began working closely with the IAB to develop a single SDK to cover all in-app viewability and verification needs. With the OM SDK now available, InMobi can now get its supply measured by all the viewability vendors (including ComScore, DoubleVerify and Google ActiveView, among others) that moved to OM SDK and got rid of their legacy SDKs.

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So far, OM SDK reaches more than 2 billion mobile devices across the globe. Less than 10 companies in the U.S. have been certified, putting us in exclusive company.

“With in-app advertising viewability and verification simplified and made more consistent, brands can confidently and more easily buy mobile app inventory. I encourage buyers, sellers, and relevant platforms, to update their systems to support OM SDK and pursue OM SDK-enabled media,” said Dennis Buchheim, Senior Vice President and General Manager at IAB Tech Lab “Let’s continue the momentum toward simplicity and support better business relationships and results.”

What is the OM SDK?

Let’s get into more details here. What, precisely, is the OM SDK?

It is designed to facilitate third-party viewability and verification vendors to measure impressions for ads served to mobile app environments without requiring their own SDK. The development of this SDK is an industry-wide effort lead by the IAB.

In layman’s terms, it ensures there is just one SDK to implement - as opposed to dozens - to cover all verification and viewability needs. Before, if an advertiser wanted to have a third party track its mobile in-app ad campaigns, it would need to make sure that third party had its own SDK implemented in all target apps. Now, instead of different advertisers using different third parties (and associated SDKs), everyone can use one shared SDK for all of their verification and viewability needs.

“This is a momentous day for the industry and for InMobi,” said Anne Frisbie, SVP Global Programmatic and North America at InMobi. “We are proud to share that all InMobi formats are now covered and certified by the IAB. Along with this, all major viewability vendors can now be supported, which will unlock more measurable supply for advertisers. Furthermore, this will create additional metrics consistency across vendors, since the data inputs are now the same.”

Why is the OM SDK Beneficial?

The OM SDK is a big deal for both advertisers (and their partners) and app publishers (and their ad partners).

On the demand side, the OM SDK makes it easier for advertisers and their partners to know with complete certainty that their mobile in-app ads are being viewed by real people and reaching the right audiences. Considering that most ad impressions fall below the IAB’s 70 percent viewability threshold, it’s easy to see why viewability is a longstanding concern for advertisers. As mobile devices and apps replace television sets and desktops as the screens of choice in most consumers’ lives, it’s critical that advertisers are able to effectively reach this growing audience and that they can accurately quantify their spending efforts.

“The Open Measurement SDK brings transparency and consistency to in-app mobile advertising,” said Dennis Buchheim, Senior Vice President and General Manager at IAB Tech Lab. “We’re excited to have InMobi on board and we encourage the adoption, integration and use of the OM SDK by everyone for easy ad verification and viewability measurement purpose.”

On the app publisher side, OM SDK provides two key benefits. For one, it can inspire greater trust and transparency among brands currently aiming to run ads on a particular app. It can go a long way towards convincing advertisers that they’re reaching real people and that their creatives are making a measurable impact.

The OM SDK can also help app developers and publishers reduce SDK bloat and get their apps to load more quickly. SafeDK has found that the average app now has around 18 SDKs implemented, with analytics and advertising SDKs among the common ones in place.

While each of these SDKs has a key purpose, they’re also impacting app load times and overall performance. A separate report from SafeDK on a sample property found that while the core app itself loaded in less than a second, the overall app loaded in close to three seconds because of all of the SDKs in place. By reducing its SDK load, apps can load much faster - which is key for placating today’s increasingly impatient end users.

Interested in getting started with the OM SDK today? Go to https://iabtechlab.com/standards/open-measurement-sdk/ for more information, and reach out to us to learn how you can begin leveraging the OM SDK.

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