The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has produced a set of guidelines to help advertisers and publishers “demystify” online advertising.

The IAB Quality Assurance Guidelines aim to define a set of standard terms and processes for use by ad networks and exchanges.

The US-based body has called the current online advertising marketplace “complex and confusing.”

According to the IAB, networks and exchanges that volunteer to be certified against the guidelines will be “providing marketers and agencies with a standardized approach that is designed to make buying easier and to give increased control over where ads are placed”. In turn, marketers and agencies will benefit from “greater brand safety assurances that ads will not appear next to content that they decide is inappropriate”.

“For the first time, the US ad networks and ad exchanges market will be giving advertisers consistent and standardized information, serving to build greater marketplace trust,” says the IAB report.