Omnicom Media Group's OMD media agency will no longer accept site-served publisher data for mobile delivery and click performance related to mobile display advertising.

The agency will instead rely on DoubleClick DART or another third-party ad server for independent verification of mobile display campaign delivery and click performance. The decision was made after a six-month test proved successful with multiple leading mobile ad networks and publishers.

"If your publication or network has yet to successfully implement a DFA-executed display campaign we encourage you to set up testing as soon as you are able," said Jamie Wells, U.S. mobile director for OMD's Ignition Factory in New York, in an email sent last night to major mobile publishers and ad networks.

The agency's policy revision covers only mobile display units. Mobile units such as text links, rich mobile media and mobile video are excluded.

OMD's clients include Pepsi, Visa, Nissan, Henkel-Dial, H&R Block, McDonald's, Intel and Hilton.

This decision makes OMD one of the first major agencies to formally mandate third-party ad serving for independent verification of all mobile display campaign delivery and click performance.

While some agencies have executed variants of third-party ad serving on an ad hoc basis, OMD takes the lead in formalizing this process, especially in mandating that publishers must comply with the method if the agency is to recommend them in media plans for clients.

Third-party ad serving lets agencies independently verify campaign delivery and click performance. An agency such as OMD can verify that media impressions are actually being delivered as per delivery guarantees offered by its publisher and ad network partners.

Also, by verifying click performance in a timely manner, OMD can optimize mobile display media while the campaign is in flight. This will help in potentially reallocating media into those placements that perform better or emphasize higher-performing creative executions.

Moreover, third-party ad serving is already the norm for display ads in the wired Internet space.

Thus, OMD's decision is meant to bring the mobile practice in line with the wired Internet's to ensure consistency and standards in trafficking and reporting, especially as staff and systems are already equipped to measure that way.

How does it work?
Third-party ad serving in mobile works the same way as it works with the wired Internet.

Mobile display ad creative is uploaded into a third-party system at the agency level and ad tags are generated. Different ad tags correspond to different pieces of ad creative and different placements of this creative.

Placement is defined as site level -- for example, "WeatherBug Mobile," or area within a site such as Yahoo Homepage or Yahoo Sports.

These tags are passed on to the mobile publisher to traffic into its own ad server. In some cases, this process is slightly modified to allow the publisher or ad network to serve the actual ad creative out of the publisher's ad server in conjunction with an agency-supplied third-party ad tag that also serves a 1x1 transparent pixel for tracking purposes.

In either case, the process is then checked for accuracy and the campaigns go live. OMD can then pull its own reports daily, gaining complete visibility into how a campaign is delivering against an impression guarantee.

The shop can also check the click performance of individual ads or ad groups on a site, sub-site placement or creative level.

Ultimately, the publisher or ad network is held accountable to the numbers that OMD pulls out of its ad server for the purposes of payment.

In other words, ad networks and publishers are compensated based on OMD's numbers, and not theirs.

Some may claim that third-party data verification of mobile display ad serving is superior to the alternative.

Most mobile display campaigns are currently monitored against site-served data. Put another way, the publisher or ad network generates reports on impression delivery and click performance and delivers them to the agency or sometimes directly to the client. This is done on an ad hoc and manual basis.

The flaw in this model is that the agency has no way of independently verifying the data. It has to rely on the ad network or publisher's performance reports to adjust media allocations to improve performance.

Standardizing third-party ad serving in mobile is designed to help advertisers benefit from the same accountability they expect from wired Internet advertising.

Combine that standardization with an expected campaign boost from better reporting and campaign optimization and the mobile Web becomes a more viable advertising medium, just like its wired counterpart.