The new IAB and MRC Attention Measurement Guidelines (Nov 2025) are here, and they’re changing how we think about “Attention.” They lay out a clear framework for how the ad industry can measure not just if an ad appeared, but if it actually held someone’s attention.
And at the heart of it all? The Open Measurement SDK (OM SDK), the invisible plumbing that keeps digital measurement flowing smoothly across apps, videos, and CTV devices.
Why Attention Matters
In a world of infinite scrolls and split screens, simply showing an ad isn’t enough. Advertisers want to know if people noticed, processed, and emotionally connected with what they saw. Attention is emerging as the bridge between exposure and effectiveness — the missing link that helps brands predict outcomes like recall, favorability, and even conversions.
Put simply: attention turns impressions into impact.
The Open Measurement Foundation
Think of the OM SDK as the universal translator for ad signals. It tracks core metrics like viewability, audibility, share of screen, time-in-view, orientation, and user interactions – all through the standardized OMID API.
Before OM SDK, every measurement provider had their own setup. Now, one shared standard captures the essentials everywhere, no matter the device or platform. These OM signals form the foundation of the new Attention Guidelines – helping measure whether users actually had the chance to see or hear an ad.
From Viewability to Attention
By building on the IAB Tech Lab’s OM protocol, the Guidelines bring everyone onto the same playing field. Signals that once only proved “an ad was seen” now help show “how much it was noticed.”
Here’s how those signals evolve:
- Visible and audible time → How long someone’s eyes or ears were on the ad
- Clicks, gestures, and scrolls → How actively they engaged
- Context and placement data → How environment and format influence focus
In short: The Guidelines and OM turned compliance measurement into attention signals, upgrading measurement from “Did it show?” to “Did it matter?”
If Open Measurement lays the pipes, the Attention Guidelines provide the blueprint. Together, they make attention measurable, verifiable, and scalable, turning messy, fragmented data into a common language for media quality and effectiveness. The OM SDK will help standardize and scale attention measurement across important media types and channels across audio, mobile and CTV.
Or, put simply: OM gives us the signals. The Guidelines tell us what they mean.
Mind the Gaps
Of course, the OM SDK doesn’t capture everything yet. The Guidelines highlight a few extra signals–not all required or mutually exclusive–that are used in different approaches to understanding human attention:
- Eye tracking and facial coding for visual and emotional cues
- Physiological or neurological data (like heart rate or EEG) to gauge mental effort
- Surveys and panels to measure recall, relevance, and perception
- Co-viewing and OOH detection for shared screens and public spaces
So, while OM SDK provides the baseline layer of “what happened,” the future will blend it with biometric, panel, and predictive data to explain the “why.”
Governance and Trust
OM SDK’s goal is to establish an industry standard for impression measurement signal collection, and to ensure every integration is validated, consistent, and auditable.
That trust layer makes the data credible, and MRC-ready for accreditation.
IAS: Turning Standards into Action
At Integral Ad Science (IAS), we’re proud to have helped shape these guidelines and to be part of the IAB’s Attention Task Force. We’ve long believed that better signals drive better outcomes– and now, with a standardized framework in place, the industry can finally connect quality, viewability, and human attention in a single, validated system. This is why IAS is also a founding member of the Tech Lab OM SDK Commit Group that helps to drive and develop the roadmap for that open standard.
At IAS we define attention as a measure of whether or not an ad is resonating with consumers and can be linked to business results. When you measure attention you understand how media visibility, the ad environment, and customer interaction impact campaign performance.
Gautam Babbar
Director, Product Management
Integral Ad Science