The Wireless Advertising Association today released its first set of creative standards and measurement definitions for wireless ads. Whether these will be adopted by the industry is hard to
predict, but nevertheless here they are:
First, the WAA defined reach as the unique (unduplicated) number of users/devices to which an advertiser's message is delivered. Target reach is the
number users/devices within advertiser's target audience to whom an advertiser's message is delivered. Frequency, the WAA said, is the number of times each advertising message has been sent per
unique user/device. Nothing new there.
Unfortunately, WAA's definition of an impression leaves a lot to the imagination. They decided that an impression is "the sending of an advertising
message to a user/device as recorded by the server software (total impressions=reach x frequency)."
So does their definition of a click-through: "user/device interaction with an advertisement
that does not initiate a call back."
"Message Received" is confirmation forwarded back to the server that states that the message was successfully transmitted to a user/device; and "call
back" is a user/device calling in to phone number from the wireless ad for more information or messaging -- that can be tracked via a specific response number or tracking code.
I hate to say
it, but if wireless advertising does indeed take off as high as enthusiasts hope it will, the standards are going to have to be a lot more specific.