As of yesterday all the apps in the Burt.hub got some minor touch-ups and fixes. From a purely technical standpoint, nothing has even remotely changed and all our apps will continue to deliver the ease of use and stellar results you’ve come to expect from us here at Burt.
As you cruise through our apps the one thing you might notice is that we stopped using the term In-Screen and opted instead to go with the more common terminology, Viewable Impressions. We are basically only changing one word: Viewable instead of In-screen. It sounds quite insignificant maybe but is far from that. It is very important for us and our clients to speak in the same terms avoiding every possible confusion.
The problem that we encountered when discussing In-screen with our customers was, that it was often confused with First Screen. Especially on the US market the latter is an established term quite different to what we define as In-Screen and therefore people find it confusing to understand what our In-screen in relation to that is.
To clarify: basically we will continue to measure and report the In-screen just as we did so far, there will be no changes in how we technically measure it, we are only taking a strong position towards using terminology that is internationally recognised and based on mutual definition of viewability.
By doing this we are also taking a lead on a concept that is rather new, not everyone are positive, many are afraid of it and there is no lack of healthy skeptics (would need more of those when talking about regular impressions).
So the reason we are doing this now is that internationally the Viewable Impression has been gaining recognition, furthermore there is also an ongoing lobbying process in the US for its introduction as a general standard. The proposed criteria or standard for viewability, recommended by the industry leaders who participated in Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS), is at least 50% of pixels in view for a minimum of one second. This definition is thus in line with how we at Burt define an Viewable (former called In-screen) Impression.
The 3MS initiated to enhance and standardise digital metrics and establish a measurement governance model that allows for cross-platform comparison. As part of this, the initiative created “5 Guiding Principles of Digital Measurement.” where the first principle takes on a new standard of Viewable Impressions.
"Principle #1 – Move to a “viewable impressions” standard and count real exposures online. Today we count “served impressions” as recorded by ad servers. Often, ad units are not in a viewable space to the end-user or fail to fully load on the screen – potentially resulting in substantial over-counting of impressions. Viewable exposures are increasingly the norm across other media and better address the needs of brand marketers. (Source: 3MS)"
If you have any further questions on how we measure Viewable Impressions or how you can make use of the metrics in your work you can always contact our guys at the Support Team. Just send a quick note to Niklas and you can set up a date whenever it fits best.
Read more about the process of establishing Viewable Impression as a standard by the MRC Viewable Impression Advisory.
If you are interested in the topic and want to learn some more here are a few additional recent articles that provide some good insights on the topic:
Viewability Technology Primer, Part 1: Promises & Pitfalls
Viewability Technology Primer, Part 2: Vendor Selection & Applications
Trade Groups Release Some Viewability Data; IAB Says Metric Not Ready for Prime Time
