Adobe, MPA, 4As Attempt to Standardize Tablet Audience Reporting Through DPS

New engagement tracking capabilities hoped to be duplicated by other vendors.

By Bill Mickey

Tablet editions are still, in general, a small percentage of a publisher’s readership. That’s been a major hang-up for advertisers—the platform has yet to catch on in a major way with marketers. Publishers are hoping that a certain level of scale will tip the balance, and Adobe is providing a push with the release of integrated audience metrics in its Digital Publishing Suite.

DPS now lets publishers track total number of tablet readers per issue, total number of sessions per issue, average amount of time spent per reader per issue and average number of sessions per reader per issue.

The tracking and reporting capabilities were launched in collaboration with the MPA and the American Association of Advertising Agencies in an effort to standardize metrics and engage marketers with a more consistent story.

Further, the AAM has certified DPS as a verified platform for audience metrics reporting. “The impact here is that the certification for these metrics sets the stage at a couple of levels,” says Eric John, AAM’s vice president of digital services. “Now we have a platform that is compliant with the guidelines that the MPA has set forward and that publishers seem to be embracing.”

Yet the question of scale still remains. Adobe claims significant market penetration—70 percent of the top grossing magazines on iOS newsstand, two million publications delivered every week—a key factor in MPA’s push toward standardization, but there are many other providers.

In an attempt to smooth the way for more vendors and service providers to jump on board, Adobe has released the development methodology it used to integrate the measurement capabilities.

“We’re publishing these so other vendors can implement the MPA recommendations the same way,” says Nick Bogaty, Adobe’ senior director of business development and marketing, digital publishing.