viewability | Internet Marketing Blog

Viewable impressions: sense prevails in trading on 'viewability' in online display advertising

Late last year, the Media Rating Council (MRC) said it would be premature for online advertising to transact on 'viewable impressions'.

The findings of our own research show why we couldn't agree more.

'Viewability' was a hot topic in online display in 2012 and that looks set to continue this year. Ad Age put out an article a couple of weeks ago about viewability with the subtitle “lots of debate, little action”.

But, while viewable impressions as a measurement metric make sense in theory, the practical application is complicated and potentially dangerous to the short-term health of the industry for both sellers and buyers.

Will 2013 be the year of native advertising? [infographic]

Digital channels continue to provide advertisers with an ever-growing number of options for marketing to consumers, but there's a problem: many of their messages don't get through.

Many consumers, bombarded by ads, many of which they see as annoyances, have blinded themselves to certain types of ad units, and some, in an attempt to squash ads altogether, have turned to ad blocking software. Coupled with poorly-placed units, advertisers often have no idea how many of their ads have actually been viewed or were even viewable, prompting calls for viewability standards.

Half of online ads aren't 50% in-view for even a second: report

Advertisers have more and more types of online ad inventory than ever, and thanks to technologies like real-time bidding, increasingly sophisticated ways to buy them.