IAB Australia to retire monthly metric

The IAB said that the UB metric is no longer “in line with the active online population or total populations”, with monthly UBs totalling more than 90 million, more than five times the population of Australia.

When the metric is withdrawn in February next year, the IAB said that the people-based “Unique Audience” metric should be used instead.

Gai Le Roi, the IAB’s director of research, said: “The monthly UB metric has been used in Australia for more than 15 years but now that it no longer equals a person, it has outlived its usefulness as a proxy for monthly visitation to website figures and should not be used.”

While the monthly UB metric is being taken offline, the daily version can still be used as the IAB Measurement Council has determined that the active online population in Australia is aligned with the daily UB numbers.