Published on the 03/09/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
The viewability of online advertisements has dropped in Australia, meaning advertisers risk missing their mark…
Integral Ad Science has released its second quarter media quality report which reveals a decline in Australian ‘viewability’. Viewability is measured by the US based Media Ratings Council’s yardstick of an advert ,where 50 percent of pixels are in focus for at least one second in a browser tab.
This is considered the minimum test for viewability – some international sites offer much higher viewability ratings – and charge a premium for that.
In Australia, viewability has dropped to just 40.8 percent of online advertisements in the second quarter compared to 44.4 percent the previous quarter.
According to Integral Ad Science MD James Diamond, this trend goes against what is being seen in other digitally sophisticated markets.
“In the UK, viewability has been used as a tool by advertising agencies for longer,” and they were prepared to pay a premium for good viewability he said.
In the US he said that advertising discussions were all about viewable impressions rather than ads served.
“Locally, advertising agencies have not fully embraced the concept,” he said. However he said savvy advertisers were starting to use viewability as a measured KPI in their campaigns.
He further noted that, “Agencies locked into long trading agreements may have an issue if they try to overlay metrics. Then you might see an advertiser put pressure on an agency.”
Diamond explained that, for advertisers, viewability is key – because if they invest in data analysis to make sure that the location of the ad matches their preferred audience sector, but the ad cannot be viewed on the site, all the investment in identifying the target market is wasted.
A further challenge exists with regard to mobile viewability. Although there is a viewability definition for video (50 percent of pixels visible for at least two continuous seconds) – there is as yet no defined standard.
However, Diamond said that publishers which invested in ensuring that their sites offered good viewability rankings would in the future be able to charge a premium.
While Australian publishers received a smack on the wrist for their viewability statistics, Diamond said that there was an improvement in local brand safety awareness – which ensures that adverts are placed sensitively with regard to other content on a page – and that ad fraud during the quarter had dropped from 8.7 percent to 7.4 percent which he acknowledged as lower than that of many other markets.
