Does The UK Need A Tracking Standards Group Simliar To US?

At its annual member meeting, the Performance Marketing Association announced the formation of a new working group to develop Tracking Standards for performance advertising, named the Tracking Standards Working Group (TSWG).

With a goal to "identify and standardise tracking methodologies to improve overall reliability and results" the aim for the TSWG is to identify problems with current tracking methods and propose standards for new and innovative tracking solutions.

Lee Brown: CTO of HasOffers.com comments:

"As performance advertising continues to grow, it’s imperative that we establish tracking standards to make the industry cohesive and foster accelerated growth, the IAB has done a great job of creating standards for display advertising, and now is the time to create standards for performance advertising."

Should tracking standards be formed within the UK?

The Performance Marketing Association, that includes some of the major networks in the US including the likes of LinkShare, Commission Junction & ClickBank, shares a similar goal with the UK's IAB Affiliate Marketing Council (AMC) to raise awareness of this marketing channel and inevitably secure extra budget for the channel.

As tracking options vary across the many Networks that operate within the UK and Europe, is a Tracking Standards Group something that the AMC should consider forming?

As far as i'm aware the issue has never been raised at an AMC meeting to date, and depending on the tracking solutions that each network supplies will likely be seen as a large USP when choosing a Network to work with, and therefore I would expect resistance should it be brought up.

Naturally, striving for 100% reliability in tracking technology should continually be a priority for Networks, but is there a need to create a Tracking Standards Group?

Do figures on untracked sales show that the untracked percentage gap is widening, and would the formation of such a group stifle competition between networks in their aim to provide 100% successful tracking technology?

Kevin Edwards, Current IAB AMC Chairman adds:

"Any moves towards standardisation of best practice should be welcomed, however it will be interesting to see how the US overcomes networks' inherent desire to showcase their proprietary tracking technologies as their USP."