The Open Measurement Software Development Kit (OM SDK) has been developed by the IAB Tech Lab in order to facilitate third party viewability and verification measurement for ads served to web video and native app environments. The OM SDK is a shared code and libraries intended to simplify third-party access to measurement data. In 2021, the IAB launched the latest version of the OM SDK for CTV. Connected TV OS that integrate the OM SDK can send measurement signals to the collective OMID API, allowing measurement providers to easily place tags on CTV campaigns. 

How the OM SDK works for CTV and why it's important

The Open Measurement Software Development Kit is a powerful tool that is particularly useful for Connected TV advertising. It helps address measurement challenges associated with CTV ads, ensuring transparency, accountability, and accurate reporting. 

Here are some reasons why the OM SDK is beneficial for CTV advertising:

1. Standardization

CTV advertising relies on a myriad of platforms, devices, and apps, making it challenging to obtain consistent and accurate measurement across different environments. The OM SDK provides a standardized framework that allows for consistent measurement and verification of ad viewability, impressions, and other industry-standard metrics across CTV environments.

2. Improved viewability verification

Viewability is the key metric of online advertising. CTV presents unique challenges in measuring viewability due to its really diverse ecosystem. The OM SDK enables accurate viewability measurement by integrating with CTV apps and providing a common language for communication between measurement vendors, ad servers, advertisers and measurement solutions.

3. Stronger fraud detection

The CTV is not immune to fraudulent practices. The OM SDK helps fight fraud at scale, by integrating with third-party measurement solutions like Adloox, that can detect and prevent fraudulent activities.

4. Reliable CTV expenses

The OM SDK allows high CTV measurement transparency by providing advertisers and publishers with insights into how their CTV ads are performing. Measurement solutions can push standardized reporting and measurement capabilities, delivering advertisers with clear understanding of their campaigns' effectiveness, audience reach, and engagement. By leveraging the OM SDK, advertisers can have more confidence in the accuracy and reliability of their CTV advertising campaigns. Overall, the OM SDK helps strengthen trust between advertisers, publishers, and measurement vendors.

Why it is useful to choose an OMS DK-ready measurer for your CTV campaigns

Overall, the Open Measurement SDK plays a crucial role in overcoming measurement challenges in CTV advertising. It enables standardized measurement, enhances viewability verification, helps combat ad fraud, promotes transparency, boosts advertiser confidence, and benefits from industry-wide adoption.

Currently, OM SDK supports Android TV and Apple tvOS, but other major CTV platforms will join as soon as 2024, including Roku and Samsung (Tizen). These 4 companies alone will cover almost 50% of the whole global market for CTV advertising potential consumer reach, an even larger part for Europe and the United States. In 2020, more than 160 million homes were equipped with a Samsung Tizen TV, and Roku TV OS has 6.5% worldwide market share, rising to 36% in the US. LG Electronics should join the OMS DK program soon, further strengthening the coverage of the IAB’s initiative, knowing that the manufacturer accounted for around 17.2% of the global television market last year.

At the same time, CTV adoption among consumers and advertisers is growing rapidly, adding 10.4% in advertising revenue between 2023 and 2028 on a combined annual basis, according to GroupM. 

CTV OS measurable through OMS DK by 2024:

Optimize your CTV advertising with Adloox

Adloox ad verification, measurement and optimization suite is already compatible and ready for Open Measurement SDK for CTV and In-App. Thanks to its OMS DK compatibility, Adloox offers its customers efficient, linear and scalable measurement on all TV OS available through OMS DK, providing you with the same level of insight and optimization as with all other programmatic and online advertising platforms you use.

Some interesting OMS DK features for CTV are:

🔵 Display Connection Status which allows to understand when the TV display is off, but applications may still be running.

🔵 CTV Traffic Identification, which helps understanding the environment in which a native app is running.

🔵 Last activity signal that monitors when an event has occurred indicating that someone is "still watching".

🔵 Video Pod Measurement enabling measurement of video ad pods with gapless playback for “javascript” session types.

And many more…

Learn more about our CTV coverage here.