IAB Gives Final Word On Rich Media Impressions -- What about Overlays?

Gavin at MediaPost has some information on the IAB issuing their "final word" about rich-media ad impressions. Counting impressions has become more difficult as the level of Ajax (that's the technology that refreshes a page without it "counting") increases.

"It's critical that there's consistency in how impressions are counted on pages using AJAX," said Sheryl Draizen, senior vice president and general manager of the IAB.

"We're giving confidence to the numbers," added Draizen, referring to the ad impressions that determine how much money advertisers pay publishers for placed ads.

My question for the right now is, how are overlays counted? When I met with VideoEgg, they said that any interaction with the overlay is considered action and therefore is reported as the metric to clients. I do not agree with this - just like popups, popunders, layer ads. Remeber when layer ads first ran? The metrics showed unbelievable clickthroughs - all because the user had no idea how to close the thing.

With Google now in the overlays game, create a metric standard for how overlays are reported on an interaction-basis will be critical for the technology to be taken seriously.