AD VIEWABILITY, IMPORTANCE AND HOW TO IMPROVE IT.

Ad viewability is the concept of how visible ads on a website or mobile appears to users. For an ad to be considered “viewed” at least 50% of the banner or creative must display on screen for more than one second. Ad viewability is a relatively new concept in digital advertising but it became important after it was reported that 54% of display ads were not being seen despite advertisers paying for them.

During the early days of Internet advertising, ad networks emphasized the number of ads viewed and the metrics reported on ad campaigns were traditionally on the number of ads served . Markerters would calculate the relative success of a campaign by dividing the number of ads served by the number of clicks. Advertisers began to question the practice of using ads served as a proxy for ads viewed. It occurred to them that if an ad appeared below the fold at the bottom of a webpage but a user never scrolled down far enough to see it, the ad was non-viewable and the ad impression should not be counted.

It also became clear that there were other factors that could contribute to an ad not being seen: Users clicking away from a page before the ad loaded or bots and proxy servers opening pages rather than live human beings. Because of these factors, advertisers are beginning to demand that publishers quantify the percentage of their ads that are actually a viewable ad and structure their advertising rates accordingly. It is important for media companies to ensure that their customer’s ads are viewable so that they can keep their advertisers happy.

For Publishers, there is an high ROI correlated with improved viewability and so it is in their best interest to prioritize improving the visibility of their ads. They can start by designing their pages in such a way that the ads load with maximum viewability potential. This can either mean designing a page so that ad unit is “above the fold” or is a “sticky” ad unit. Sticky ad units are a type of ad that remain locked in a specific location when the user scrolls.

Publishers can also make their sites mobile-friendly by using responsive templates that resize according to the device it is being viewed upon. This guarantees a good user experience no matter the device (tablet, phone or desktop).

Ad viewability also improves through good design principles: a clear visual hierarchy, symmetry, pleasing proportions, white space and clean design. Another thing that improves ad viewability is speed. Sites that are laden with ads from multiple ad networks can typically take a long time to load, which can result in a lower ad viewability as users click away before the ads load. Techniques for speeding up ad delivery can greatly improve ad viewability.

In addition to activities focused on the delivery of ads, publishers can also begin measuring and validating ad viewability through third party software and making those metrics available to advertisers.

At Cybertron Ads, we ensure that the creatives of the advertisers are put on good and quality websites and also help publishers to earn per click which encourages them to improve the quality of their website so as to get more impressions. Why don’t you work with us? Send us a message at hello@cybertornads.com to get started.