What has to be true before an ad impression may be counted?

Delivery and rendering

• The count is recorded at a point as late as possible in the delivery of the creative to the user's browser or device, and is filtered for invalid traffic ¹.
• The ad content must have been loaded at the client side and at minimum have begun to render into the user interface or device, so that an opportunity for the ad to be visible has been created ¹.
• Measurement of begin-to-render should include the logical components necessary to display the ad, and does not necessarily include non-essential elements such as other tracking elements ¹.
• For an AR placement, the ad must be loaded within an AR session and at minimum begin to render, with the count occurring after retrieval of the underlying content has been initiated ¹.
• Video advertising counted with a client-side technique should be counted only when the advertising itself starts to execute in the viewable area of the screen, post caching ².

Quality, timing and labelling

• Valid impressions must meet the minimum requirements of the IAB Measurement Guidelines for the applicable creative type and user environment ¹.
• All prerequisite conditions for the respective impression type, such as Rendered, OTS, LTS or Audience, must be met, alongside accounting that restricts measurement and reporting to periods when advertising content is displayed ¹.
• The time at which the ad was served must fall within the campaign reporting period and precede billing for that period under the predetermined billing cycle ².
• Exposure occurrences must be filtered from non-human activity where applicable ².
• Activity counted once measurement assets have downloaded and initiated, but before ad content loads and renders, should be reported as Tracked Ads rather than labelled an ad impression without qualification ¹.