Viewability is one of the more important factors that marketers have to take into consideration when dealing with multiple ad campaigns at a time. It is definitely not always an easy task to measure the viewability of ads, especially with the larger campaigns. The IAB even details some of the better ways for the ad industry to improve upon their marketing viewability and measurement, in “Making Measurement Make Sense.” The 3MS standard of viewability that has been set in place is that 50% of an ad must be viewable for at least one second. However, there has been a problem with viewability lately, and according to a study by AdSafe Media, an advertising security company, less than half of the ads online meet the standard.
This AdSafe Media Report, with results reported by AdWeek, showed that for advertisements sold directly by publishers, 49.9% met the viewability standard. For ads bought through ad networks, only 41.2% met the standard. For those advertisements that were sold through ad exchanges, only 40.3% of ads were able to meet the mark. After an extension into a viewing window of 15 seconds, the numbers are even lower. Directly sold ads went to 21.1%, exchange ads went to 16.4%, and network ads dropped to 16.3%.
Another problem that AdSafe Media found within the results was the amount of ad collision that has occurred within the first half of 2012. When the same advertisement pops up twice on the same page at the same time, it lowers t chance of conversion on each of the two, making ad collision something to avoid. However, we tend to see it happening quite a bit on some of the websites that we regularly browse. The results showed that these ad collisions happen with about 6% to 7% of ads that are served on the internet, which may seem low, but it is still too many.
In the AdWeek article by Tim Peters, a suggestion based on the results is given that could help in avoiding ad collision.
Instead of getting views through two ads colliding, brands could be better off buying one long vertical ad. Ads measuring 160 x 600 pixels meet the 3MS viewability standard 53.1 percent of the time (and 68.1 percent of the time if bought directly). For 728 x 90 pixel ads—those wide horizontal ones usually found atop the page—the requirement is met 36.1 percent of the time, whereas the boxy 300 x 250 units hit the mark 38.4 percent of the time.
Before any really successful performance marketing can take place, viewability standards have to be considered. If an ad is to bring in the results that any marketer hopes for, then it needs to be well thought out and viewable to consumers. The results of AdSafe Media’s viewability study shows just how important this factor should become, as over half of the ads that are put out on the web today do not meet the viewability standards needed to be successful.
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