MRC and IAB release attention measurement guidelines for advertisers

The Media Rating Council announced on November 12, 2025, the finalization of attention measurement guidelines developed in collaboration with the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The guidelines establish standardized frameworks for measuring attention across digital advertising formats, addressing years of fragmentation and inconsistent methodologies that have complicated campaign evaluation and budget allocation decisions.

According to the Media Rating Council LinkedIn announcement, the guidelines were initially released in May 2025 for public comment through July, with the final version issued in November 2025. The framework covers multiple attention measurement approaches including data signals, visual tracking, physiological and neurological observation, and panel-based or survey-based methodologies.

The guidelines define key attention dimensions spanning content, placement, and creative elements. They establish minimum requirements designed to ensure quality, transparency, and comparability in reported metrics across measurement vendors, media platforms, and advertising environments. Importantly, the framework reinforces that attention should not be considered or used as a measure of outcomes for evaluating campaign performance, but represents an important data point in understanding exposure and engagement beyond delivery metrics.

The development process involved extensive industry collaboration. The Media Rating Council, a non-profit industry self-regulatory body established in 1963, worked with the Interactive Advertising Bureau throughout 2025 to develop standards addressing the proliferation of attention measurement solutions that emerged without consistent definitions or methodologies. The public comment period allowed stakeholders across the advertising ecosystem to submit feedback before finalization.

Claire Browne, Head of Research at Adelaide Metrics, commented on the LinkedIn announcement thanking both organizations. "Thank you for your efforts IAB and Media Rating Council, your work will help our industry. We appreciate you," Browne stated. The response reflects broader industry recognition that standardization addresses measurement fragmentation that has limited advertiser confidence in attention metrics.

The timing of these guidelines follows significant momentum in attention-based advertising measurement throughout 2024 and 2025. Multiple measurement providers expanded attention capabilities during this period, reflecting growing advertiser demand for granular engagement insights beyond traditional viewability metrics. DoubleVerify introduced social media attention measurement with Snapchat in June 2025, combining platform exposure data with eye-tracking insights from Lumen Research to deliver impression-level attention metrics.

Nielsen expanded its measurement capabilities through a December 2024 integration with Realeyes, incorporating attention-tracking technology into its Outcomes measurement suite. The enhancement produces performance scores for advertisements across multiple market segments using AI-powered technology that generates detailed attention heatmaps identifying specific visual elements contributing to higher attention performance. Mars Inc., an early adopter of attention metrics in advertising, has implemented these measurement techniques. Sorin Patilinet, Senior Director of Global Marketing Effectiveness at Mars Inc., noted that understanding why ads work through the lens of attention helps drive better consumer experiences which ultimately lead to more sales across their global brand portfolio.

Technical implementation approaches vary significantly across attention measurement providers. Integral Ad Science expanded its Quality Attention measurement to mobile in-app environments in July 2024, combining media quality metrics with eye-tracking data from Lumen Research and machine learning algorithms. The technology processes billions of impressions and millions of conversion events to predict the likelihood of an impression leading to specific business outcomes spanning awareness, consideration, and conversion. Research from Integral Ad Science demonstrated that campaigns achieving high attention scores show up to 130% lift in conversion rates when compared to low-attention impressions, alongside 91% higher brand consideration and 166% higher purchase intent.

Snapchat and Lumen Research launched a global attention measurement tool in March 2024 after collaboration beginning in 2021 to refine attention measurement for Snapchat ads using Lumen's patented eye-tracking technology. The partnership enables scalable, real-world attention measurement within every Snapchat advertising environment, including Commercials, AR Lenses, and Snap Ads. According to Mike Follett, CEO at Lumen, the company determined through years of work with Snapchat how much visual attention is generated by Snapchat's rich media ads through eye-tracking technology. By producing a rich media attention model based on that data and thoroughly testing its accuracy, they are giving all of Snapchat's advertisers a way to instantly measure visual attention without going to the lab.

Platform-specific attention measurement has emerged as another development within the broader attention measurement landscape. Uber Advertising announced on October 31, 2025, a partnership with Adelaide and Kantar to create a custom attention measurement system for its advertising platform. The collaboration produces what the companies describe as the first platform-specific, performance-based custom model for Adelaide's AU metric and the first integration of Kantar brand lift data into this type of attention measurement framework. Testing the custom model across Uber Advertising campaigns revealed performance benchmarks that exceed industry standards, with JourneyTV, Uber's in-ride video format displayed on tablets, scoring 11% higher than average tablet video benchmarks.

Nielsen announced on October 7, 2025, a strategic collaboration with Adelaide introducing the industry's first unified approach to measuring both audience reach and media attention. Adelaide becomes the latest measurement provider to join Nielsen's Outcomes Marketplace within Nielsen ONE, bringing its omnichannel attention metric AU into the platform's ecosystem. The partnership addresses a fundamental limitation in advertising measurement: while Nielsen's established reach data tells advertisers how many people see their advertisements, Adelaide's AU metric measures how effectively that media captures attention and drives business outcomes.

The MRC guidelines come at a time when the organization has issued multiple standards addressing advertising measurement and transparency. The Media Rating Council issued draft standards in September 2025 for digital ad auction transparency, outlining requirements, guidance, and best practices for transparency, disclosure, and reporting of digital advertising auctions. The standards address auction types, bid conversion processes, reserve pricing, winner determination, reporting requirements, change disclosure protocols, and independent auditing guidelines.

The attention measurement guidelines establish frameworks that measurement vendors must follow to claim MRC compliance. The Media Rating Council maintains a comprehensive set of standards and guidelines covering various aspects of digital advertising measurement. The organization's Minimum Standards for Media Rating Research provide the base set of assessment criteria and establish the foundation for all audits conducted of services engaged in the MRC accreditation process. These standards relate to ethical and operational standards governing the quality and integrity of the entire process by which ratings are produced, disclosure standards specifying information about a rating service's methodology that must be made available to users, the MRC, and its Certified Public Accountant, and electronic delivery standards designed to ensure that services maintain appropriate system controls and meet certain minimum reporting standards.

Recent MRC activity has focused on enhancing measurement transparency across the digital advertising ecosystem. The organization updated its Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Standards in April 2022 to more fully account for the range of invalid traffic threats and related issues that exist in today's online environment. The additions and revisions in these updated standards were intended to modernize the Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Guidelines Addendum, originally issued by MRC in October 2015.

MRC restricted property-level ad verification from brand safety claims in October 2025, addressing marketplace confusion where property-level verification services analyzing only keywords and domain names were positioned as providing "brand safety" despite the 2012 IAB Ad Verification Guidelines containing no reference to "safety" and content-level analysis being defined as the standard for brand safety in the 2018 supplement. The policy requires vendors seeking MRC accreditation to implement content-level capabilities including image, video, and audio analysis before claiming brand safety measurement.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has maintained parallel efforts on measurement standardization. IAB and IAB Europe released comprehensive guidelines on November 3, 2025, establishing measurement frameworks for commerce media campaigns. The Guidelines for Incremental Measurement in Commerce Media address fragmentation challenges that have complicated budget allocation decisions as commerce media spending accelerates toward $100 billion by 2028. The guidelines define incrementality as "the causal impact of marketing by identifying the additional business outcomes directly driven by a campaign or tactic, compared to what would have occurred in the absence of marketing activity."

IAB Tech Lab announced its 2025 product roadmap on January 29, 2025, focusing on technical standards development across digital advertising sectors. The organization plans to deliver 31 new specifications or specification updates throughout 2025, compared to 23 releases in 2024. According to IAB Tech Lab's CEO Anthony Katsur, the organization completed 79 initiatives in 2024.

Regional standardization efforts have complemented these international frameworks. IAB Europe announced on September 24, 2025, that Albert Heijn has become the first Retail Media Network to achieve certification under the new IAB Europe Retail Media Certification Programme. The Netherlands-based supermarket chain completed the certification process following a successful pilot audit conducted by ABC, one of the independent auditors participating in the programme. IAB Europe has coordinated with the Media Rating Council to align MRC accreditation of European retail media measurement providers with IAB Europe certification requirements, enabling European companies with existing MRC accreditation to leverage that validation toward IAB Europe certification requirements.

The attention measurement guidelines represent a significant development for advertisers evaluating campaign effectiveness across fragmented media landscapes. The standardization enables performance comparisons, benchmarking, and deeper insights combining attention metrics with reach information and other measurement dimensions. Marketers gain visibility into audience de-duplication as well as overall campaign quality, value, and business impact through consistent frameworks rather than vendor-specific methodologies.

Implementation of the guidelines will require measurement providers to align their methodologies with MRC requirements for accuracy, transparency, and comparability. The standards specify minimum thresholds for data quality, disclosure requirements for methodology documentation, and validation procedures that measurement services must satisfy to achieve MRC accreditation for attention measurement capabilities.

The guidelines do not mandate specific technologies or approaches but instead establish principles that various measurement methodologies must satisfy. This flexibility allows for innovation in measurement techniques while ensuring comparability across different vendors and platforms. Eye-tracking approaches, machine learning models, survey methodologies, and hybrid techniques can all potentially meet the standards if they satisfy the core requirements for transparency, accuracy, and comparability.

For advertisers, the guidelines provide a framework for evaluating attention measurement vendors and understanding the limitations and appropriate applications of attention metrics. The explicit statement that attention should not be used as an outcome measure but rather as an exposure and engagement metric clarifies the role of attention within broader campaign measurement frameworks. This distinction helps prevent misapplication of attention metrics as proxies for business outcomes rather than intermediate engagement signals.

The development of these standards reflects broader industry movement toward rigorous measurement practices supported by independent validation. The Media Rating Council's accreditation process involves detailed audits conducted by independent Certified Public Accountant firms examining sample design, data collection processes, invalid traffic detection, and editing procedures. Services seeking accreditation must demonstrate compliance with MRC standards and submit detailed methodology documentation for review.

Timeline

• January 1964: Media Rating Council establishes Minimum Standards for Media Rating Research
• October 2015: MRC issues Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Guidelines Addendum
• September 2018: MRC publishes Enhanced Content Level Context and Brand Safety Supplement
• April 2022: MRC updates Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Standards
• January 2024: Integral Ad Science launches Quality Attention measurement
• March 2024: Snapchat and Lumen Research launch global attention measurement tool
• July 2024: IAS expands Quality Attention to mobile in-app environments
• December 2024: Nielsen integrates attention metrics through Realeyes partnership
• December 2024: Integral Ad Science launches attention optimization tool
• May 2025: MRC and IAB issue draft Attention Measurement Guidelines for public comment
• June 2025: DoubleVerify debuts social attention measurement with Snap partnership
• July 2025: Public comment period closes for attention measurement guidelines
• July 2025: Nielsen launches Outcomes Marketplace with Realeyes
• September 2025: MRC issues draft standards for digital ad auction transparency
• October 2025: Nielsen and Adelaide integrate attention metrics with reach data
• October 2025: MRC restricts property-level ad verification from brand safety claims
• October 2025: Uber launches platform-specific attention metric with Adelaide and Kantar
• November 2025: MRC and IAB release final Attention Measurement Guidelines
• November 2025: IAB and IAB Europe release incremental measurement guidelines for commerce media

Summary

Who: The Media Rating Council, in collaboration with the Interactive Advertising Bureau, issued the guidelines. The MRC is a non-profit industry self-regulatory body established in 1963 comprising television, radio, print, and digital media companies, as well as advertisers, advertising agencies, and trade associations. The IAB represents the digital advertising industry with member companies including measurement providers, platforms, agencies, and advertisers.

What: Comprehensive Attention Measurement Guidelines establishing standardized frameworks for measuring attention across digital advertising formats. The guidelines cover various approaches to attention measurement including data signals, visual tracking, physiological and neurological observation, and panel-based or survey-based methodologies. They define key attention dimensions of content, placement, and creative, and set forth minimum requirements to ensure quality, transparency, and comparability in reported metrics. The framework explicitly clarifies that attention should not be considered or used as a measure of outcomes for evaluating campaign performance but represents an important data point in understanding exposure and engagement beyond delivery metrics.

When: The guidelines were initially released in May 2025 for public comment through July 2025. The final version was issued in November 2025 and can be found on the Media Rating Council's website.

Where: The guidelines apply globally to digital advertising measurement across all platforms and formats where attention measurement is conducted, including desktop, mobile web, mobile in-app, connected TV, social media, and video environments.

Why: The guidelines address years of fragmentation and inconsistent methodologies in attention measurement that have complicated campaign evaluation and budget allocation decisions. Multiple measurement providers expanded attention capabilities throughout 2024 and 2025 using different approaches and definitions, creating confusion about what attention metrics represent and how they should be interpreted. By standardizing practices across measurement vendors, media platforms, and advertising environments, the guidelines aim to enhance trust, accountability, and comparability throughout the media ecosystem, enabling advertisers to make informed decisions about attention measurement vendor selection and metric interpretation.