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MMA standardizes mobile ad unit sizes with new guidelines

December 14, 2011 — 11:24am ET | By Jason Ankeny

According to the MMA, the new mobile ad unit guidelines--developed in partnership with both the buyer and seller sides of the industry--identify six standardized mobile ad unit sizes. The trade organization analyzed more than 60 different unit sizes and hundreds of billions of mobile ad impressions delivered during the second quarter of 2011 to determine the six that make up the new standards, which replace version 5.0 of the MMA's Mobile Advertising Guidelines and version 1.0 of the Universal Mobile Ad Package. The association adds that earlier guidelines were published without access to the current data and did not set standards for ad unit sizes.

The MMA encourages mobile marketers to review the Universal Mobile Ad Package v.2.0 standards during a 30-day public comment period beginning Dec. 14. After all comments are incorporated, mobile ad networks will be given under the end of March 2012 to become compliant with the new rules. The MMA will promote compliant companies by issuing MMA Universal Mobile Ad Package Compliance stamps for member use on websites and promotional materials.

Advertisers are on pace to spend close to $1.23 billion on mobile campaigns in 2011, up from $743 million a year ago, according to a forecast published in October by eMarketer. Mobile ad spending--which includes display ads (e.g., banners, rich media and video), search and messaging-based campaigns and encompasses promotions viewed on both mobile phones and tablets--is expected to climb to almost $4.4 billion a year by 2015, bolstered by increased smartphone penetration and surging mobile web access.

For more:
- read this release
- see the guidelines (pdf)