The digital advertising industry has faced many challenges with measuring video viewability, which has threatened the segment's recent growth.  Though video advertising revenue growth increased 50% in 2021, scaling effective viewability measurement is vital in order to ensure growth continues.

For years, Video Player-Ad Interface Definition (VPAID) has been used to enable video ad viewability measurement in desktop and mobile web environments, but the technology has created many problems for publishers. Challenges include longer load times, increased video failure rates, poor user experience, security issues and a general lack of transparency. These issues highlighted a need for the ecosystem to develop better solutions: Open Measurement SDK for Web Video.

What is the Open Measurement SDK?

Developed originally for mobile app measurement, the IAB Tech Lab, Google, DV and other industry stakeholders launched Open Measurement Software Development Kit (OM SDK) to enable seamless third-party measurement. To combat the challenges with VPAID and prepare for the future, the industry expanded OM SDK to improve measurement and unite support for web, mobile in-app and CTV environments under a single framework.  

Google then added support for the OM SDK with the IMA SDK for HTML5 as part of a common publisher ad execution flow. This change made it easy to enable support for Open Measurement through Google Ad Manager (GAM), moving the industry toward a technologically superior framework without requiring excessive implementation efforts from publishers.

How do publishers benefit from supporting OM SDK for Web Video?

By supporting OM SDK on their site, publishers increase transparency and access to inventory measurement for advertising partners utilizing verification tools. With a measurement technology shift from VPAID to OM SDK, publishers will inevitably begin to see benefits such as:

• Improved user experience
• Improved page speed and responsiveness
• Streamlined and improved inventory measurement
• Elimination of various VPAID related issues

What are the access levels enabled by OM SDK?

By default, publishers that have activated the OM SDK will provide verification vendors with limited access to their site. To give publishers control and privacy options, they must choose to enable different access levels based on the requirements of their advertising partners.

• Limited: The verification script is sandboxed and cannot access the creative or publisher page, and cannot directly confirm what publisher domain it is on.
• Domain: The verification script is sandboxed and cannot access the creative or publisher page. However, the script is loaded in such a way that it can directly confirm what publisher domain it is on.
• Creative: The verification script and creative are sandboxed from the publisher page. However, the script has direct access to the creative.
• Full: The verification script has direct access to the creative and the publisher page.

Are there privacy issues with allowing full access to DV through the OM SDK?

No. DV is the most widely accepted verification tag on the web and its viewability products have been accredited by the Media Rating Council (MRC) since 2013 with continual accreditation since then. Through neutral accreditations and yearly audits, DV’s measurement continues to provide advertisers and publishers with confidence that DV is fulfilling its role as a platform that provides safety and transparency for our clients and the industry as a whole.

Do you still have questions regarding the transition to Open Measurement? Contact us at omid-integration@DoubleVerify.com.