#viewable impressions

[whathappensinadops]

Publisher Reactions To Requests To Bill Off Of Viewable Impressions, By Year

2012

2013

Early 2014

Mid 2014

[blogbyburt]

Viewable Impressions #FTW

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

The Future of Viewability

A Modest Proposal on Viewable Ads

[ianzweig-blog]

Viewable Online Ad Impressions Are Not Worth More

We all know not all digital ad inventory is created equal.  The big craze these days is for agencies and advertisers to specifically ask for ad placements above-the-fold, and thus "viewable" to every eyeball that reaches a webpage. 

While position might be important from an advertiser perspective, I think we put too little value on the creative design.  I've seen ads way below-the-fold perform better than ones above-the-fold just because the ad was better.  The banner ad messaging, images, words and colors all play a bigger factor in driving value for a paying advertiser, yet "viewable ad impressions" are getting all the attention these days.

Ads should be located on a page where they will bring the most recognition to the advertiser.  The decision should not be based purely on "viewability" to satisfy the current trend.

Once again online advertising is put on a pedestal because it can be measured.  Let's take a moment to compare "viewable" ad impressions by medium just for the sake of argument.

Consider if every ads in every medium is consumed.

Radio - people are focused on driving and have the habit of switching channels to avoid commercials. 

Print - newspapers have a 1-day shelf-life and there is no guarantee an ad is seen, or even glanced at.  Magazines have a longer shelf-life, but again people can skip over any ad.

TV - switching channels during those interruptive commercials is an involuntary action and let's not forget about those pesky DVRs.

Billboard - people have their eyes on the road for crying out load.

Advertising in an imperfect science.  If an online ad doesn't happen to be viewable at the exact moment a webpage loads, is it never seen then? To find the answer we have to understand how people read online.  Readers scroll down a page, which leaves the cherished ATF units out of sight.  Once a reader is done with the article advertisers are only left with the miserable, useless, retched BTF placements to get their message across. How sad. 

There is value in BTF impressions and clever marketers will take advantage of this.  I would consider delayed loads for BTF units, fixed position ads and hover units if advertisers would be willing to pay a premium for these types of placements. 

Nonetheless, we should be focused on context of content and ad creatives instead of "viewable ad impressions".  As an industry we are heading toward more paralysis by analysis.  Let's stick to the essence of marketing; did the ad campaign raise sales, lift brand favorability and, increase purchase intent? 

PS - I have yet to see media buyers pay a higher rate for these "viewable" ad impressions as many have predicted.  What I see happening is that they won't pay for below-the-fold impressions at all.

[pubgears]

You Got Served!

For an industry that has so many acronyms, it’s no surprise we have industry coalitions with funny abbreviations as well- IAB, ANA, 4A’s- all working on the 3MS, Making Measurement Make Sense. But for an industry as segmented as online media and publishing, who are they making sense for? Although there are five guiding principles to consider within the 3MS, a large push in the industry is centered around the first principle: Move to a “viewable impressions” standard and count real exposures online.

What’s the Big Idea? The IAB is determined to assure advertisers their branding budgets, typically flushed into television, are safe AND measurable online.  

Who’s leading the charge? The IAB, comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies that are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. The ANA, whose membership includes 450 companies with 10,000 brands that collectively spend over $250 billion in marketing communications and advertising. And the 4A’s, comprised of agencies with a leading objective to promote and further the interests of advertising agencies and other marketing communications organizations.

The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) and the Online Publishers Association (OPA) are listed as supporters of the initiative.

What does this initiative change? If a tree falls in a forest and no one heard it, the tree did not make a noise. Or in this instance, if an adserver made 1000 ad calls, but only 750 of the ads 1) completely rendered and 2) were more than 50% in view 3) for more than 1 second, then only 750 ads count as viewable impressions.

So now what? That’s a really great question. Momentum is building. Comscore, C3 and RealVu have products ready to support this measurement initiative. (Among the three platforms putting forth a product, RealVu is the only one with full Media Rating Council accreditation; while C3 and ComScore are in the process of applying for it.) Case studies have been formed and it seems, in some instances, as many as 68% of all display ads served are not ‘viewed’ by consumers according to the current IAB viewable impression standard.  However, according to C3 it also seems that when only taking into account viewable impressions, the true click-through rates on banner ads are 179% higher than those reported for marketers basing their measurement using gross number of impressions. Will we see media buyers only willing to be pay for Viewable Impressions? Will we start to see the time required increase for a viewable impression? Will we see publishers garner higher revenues from this new ‘premium’ inventory? All are really good questions that only time will tell.

Online advertising has definitely seen its share of buying trends and the amount of data available pre and post campaign certainly hasn’t hurt us. The idea of spending branding dollars online seems a little passé now that we can target based on purchasing behavior and deeper demographic information, but ultimately this is coupled with the desire to better understand attribution. Typically it is assumed brand dollars mean splashy invasive units and audience means strategic purchasing of standard media. What we are looking at is an attempt for these two spending ideologies to converge in a way we haven’t previously seen enforced. As publishers, we should prepare for this shift back to brand dollars, whatever that new definition may be.