How Campaign Manager 360 counts impressions and clicks

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has published industry-wide standards for counting impressions and clicks. Campaign Manager 360 uses counting methodologies that are in compliance with the latest version of the IAB guidelines and undergoes regular third-party audits to ensure that accuracy and integrity of its counting and billing processes.

These processes include filtering to ensure that the data presented to you, the customer, is as accurate as possible. The methodologies described below are how Campaign Manager 360 does the initial counting during the ad-serving process; filtering happens afterward. The impression and click counts in Campaign Manager 360 reports show data that has already been filtered.

In many cases, advertisers or publishers also implement their own counting tools. It's normal to have small discrepancies between different counting systems. Learn more about Click and impression counting discrepancies.

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Counting impressions

In general, Campaign Manager 360 counts an impression as part of the ad-serving process.

1. An Internet user accesses content that contains Campaign Manager 360 ad tags, such as a mobile app or a webpage.
2. The app or browser sends a request to Campaign Manager 360 for an ad.
3. Campaign Manager 360 chooses an ad and delivers the creative content.
4. The creative contains code that will call the Campaign Manager 360 ad server once the impression standard has been met.
   • Display ad impressions on Campaign Manager 360 and Display & Video 360 are recorded using the “begin to render” standard, which requires the creative assets to be fully downloaded before counting.
   • For OMID-enabled mobile app display traffic, Campaign Manager 360 and Display & Video 360 count impressions when at least one pixel of the ad has appeared on the device’s screen.
5. Campaign Manager 360 counts an impression.
6. The Campaign Manager 360 ad server or a third-party server delivers the creative.

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Counting clicks

When a user clicks on a Campaign Manager 360 ad:

1. The app or browser sends a request to the Campaign Manager 360 ad servers.
2. Campaign Manager 360 receives the request and counts the click.
3. Campaign Manager 360 sends a redirect back to the user's browser with the click-through URL.

Note: Counted impressions and clicks might be filtered as invalid later. Learn more about Filtering invalid traffic to ensure quality.