ABA Digital Watchdog

The purpose of the Digital Watchdog Committee is to:

• Establish and review the rules used as the basis of the ABA Digital Audits

• Monitor and discuss industry audience measurement issues which impact the reporting of online market metrics

• Advise on projects that connect audited publisher figures with advertisers and similar promotional and educational activities

The committee meets on the last Wednesday of each month at the ABA office in North Sydney.

How does this committee differ from other industry measurement groups?

The ABA Digital Watchdog Committee is the only committee focused on monitoring publisher's compliance to industry-agreed measurement rules and uses the ABA's green tick and audit process as an effective way to publicly verify the status of each publisher's rules compliance to the industry.

Why do publisher members decide to participate?

Publishers participate in order to set and maintain a high standard for the web audit process. Publishers also become involved to help formulate industry rules and be informed about measurement issues that may have significant commercial impact on their market metrics, related share of ad spend or other business KPIs.

What has the committee achieved so far?

• Since September 2009, the Digital Watchdog Committee has approved or released the following rules:

• ABA Web Audit Measurement Rules and Guidelines (released October 2009)

• CAB Digital Publication Audit Rules (released April 2010)

• Nielsen Web Metrics Definitions (approved)

• Nielsen Market Intelligence Categorisation Rules (approved)

• ABA Digital Reporting Standards and Guidelines (released September 2011)

• Digital Watchdog Committee rules against auto-play video

The committee has also invested time educating the industry on measurement issues such as the impact that auto-refreshing pages can have on inflating market metrics. The addition of this simple line of code can double page impressions and more than quadruple session duration.

Who are the members of the Digital Watchdog Committee?

The DWC members include representatives from the Media Federation of Australia, non-MFA media-buying agencies and audited publishers.

How can I join?

Audited publishers may nominate a representative to attend each monthly Digital Watchdog Committee meeting.

The ABA welcomes more participation from advertisers and agency media-buyers, so if you wish to be involved in formulating measurement rules which impact the metrics being reported to the market for media-planning purposes, please contact webaudit@auditbureau.org.au with your details.