Running campaigns or promoting brand awareness involves a need for ad viewability. In addition, the recent global pandemic of COVID-19 has pushed more businesses towards a more permanent digital footprint, prioritizing and measuring viewable ad rates.
If ads are not seen by your ideal audience on a specific channel, you should not be devoting budget ad spend to it. That would be a waste of resources, and you need your spending to bring in results.
But – how do you know if the viewability rates are accurate?
And more importantly – how do you know if the right demographic sees your ads of consumers or clients more likely to click and buy?
Your business probably has teams dedicated to developing your strategy and marketing campaigns. However, they should also be looking at your digital ad viewability and whether or not you are obtaining your reach. Here is everything that your business needs to learn regarding ad viewability.
What is Ad Viewability?
The term “ad viewability” is used to describe just how visible your advertisement is to users. It can be a display ad, landing page, mobile ad, or video ad. The Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Media Rating Council issued the initial definition regarding viewability in digital ads.
If your business has pivoted to invest in digital advertising, your stakeholders need to rely heavily on viewability to make the most informed decisions. At least half of the ad or “set” is viewable when 50% is in view for at least one second, or if it is a video ad, playing for at least two consecutive seconds.
What is the Importance of Ad Viewability?
Pathlabs digital agency, a digital media partner servicing multiple agencies, states that without a viewability standard or specific tools to monitor, there is no way for your business to tell if the viewability metrics are good enough to go by. Raising awareness on viewability helps to benefit both advertisers and publishers.
Your business needs to establish a viewability target across the digital advertising space by gathering insights from various sources. Then, you can combine and develop a comprehensive report that demonstrates your business impact on viewability within your advertising efforts.
What Are Ad Impressions?
When an advertisement completely uploads on a web or mobile screen, it becomes an “impression.” There are four types of impressions when it comes to ad viewability:
Eligible/Measurable Impressions: Downloaded and stored ads on user devices are called eligible impressions. They are labeled as measurable impressions if they meet the technical requirements to be recorded via Active View, they are labeled as measurable impressions.
Served Impressions: Ads that are simply transmitted, counted, and accessed using server data are served impressions. There is no extensive data on user behavior or the interaction with ad-blockers and bots, just a very standard impression tracking.
Viewable Impressions: Viewable impressions are where you need to focus – advertisers can quantify the percentage of ads viewed by real people, with ads displayed for more than one second. These impressions are recorded through Active View.
What is Active View?
Google’s integrated tool Active View can show your business how viewability is measured. It has a user-friendly interface and provides metrics on viewability regarding both viewable and measurable impressions, to review data and increase your conversion rates.
Your business teams can set custom-campaign metrics that include time threshold, ad percentage, and audibility. Your teams can also pay for your ad’s exact value and placement to make the most significant impact.
How Can You Improve Ad Viewability?
Suppose your business is demonstrating low ad viewability. In that case, there are some changes that you can do to help increase served impressions and attract willing consumers to your website, landing page, or other digital offerings. Of course, the biggest factors to look at are your ad size and position.
Consider changing how big (or small) your advertisement is on the page and where they are located. Evaluate where you might be able to place them more efficiently or what size helps them be more viewable.
You may want to tap into your audience during this process. For example, if consumers are more likely to view your ad on their mobile devices, you should ensure that your ad is mobile-friendly and in a more vertical format. Then, you should look at whether to position the advertisement on the top as a header, in the sidebar, or as a leader at the bottom of the page.
Where you position the ad has a significant effect on who might view it. For example, if you put your ad in place at the top, ensure it is still below your site navigation bar. Otherwise, it most likely will be scrolled passed before it loads and gives your ad poor viewability.
Monitoring Your Ad Viewability Will Increase Results
Reviewing and utilizing proper tools to evaluate your viewability is a key metric of your ad performance. Assess your current viewability status, and work to implement changes that will help increase the viewability of your digital ads.
Understand that changes won’t occur immediately; give your updates some time to make their impact. Then, you’ll be able to recognize the differences in your viewability and your bottom line.
