What do you know about your ads viewability?
Ad viewability is a crucial metric for advertisers and publishers as it directly impacts the success of advertising campaigns, influences user behavior, and contributes to a positive and effective online advertising ecosystem.
What exactly is ad viewability?
The standard definition for viewable ads, set by industry guidelines like the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Media Rating Council (MRC), requires at least 50% of the ad to be in view for at least one second for display ads or two seconds for video ads. Viewability is measured by calculating the percentage of viewable ad impressions out of the total ad impressions.
Why is Ad Viewability so important?
Industry practices demonstrate a strong correlation between ad viewability and return on investment (ROI); the higher the viewability, the better the ROI. The key to optimizing your ROI through ad viewability is to ensure that real users view your ads. This guarantees that your advertising spend is utilized effectively, increasing the likelihood of users seeing the ads and contributing to improved ad performance. These enhancements result in better user engagement, higher click-through rates, and increased conversions, ultimately leading to more successful and cost-effective advertising campaigns.
How will you improve your Ad Viewability?
Ad viewability is influenced by various factors. Controlling and optimizing them can make your ads viewability better, resulting in better performance and user experience.
Here is what you can do:
- Ad Placement: Aim to position your ads above-the-fold, as ads positioned higher on a webpage generally gain higher viewability rates. Other ads positions can also be very effective, when managed properly.
- Latencies: Make sure that your site and page loading time meet industry benchmarks. Slow loading pages can detrimentally affect ad viewability, as users may exit the page before the ad fully loads.
- Ads loading: Use lazy loading to improve the viewability rate by delaying the request and rendering of ads until the user scrolls to that specific section. Lazy loading also contributes to quicker page loading times and prevents latencies.
- Overloading: Ensure you don’t overload your site with ads. Pages loaded with running ads are likely to have lower viewability rates.
- Ad Size and Format: Larger ad formats often generate better viewability rates, so matching between specific sizes and specific pages would be a smart move.
- Responsiveness: Using responsive templates that allow users to see an ad that fits their device is an industry standard that is worthwhile to follow.
Understanding and following these factors will definitely improve your ads viewability and eventually your ad revenue.
Yet, there is another thing to bear in mind when trying to understand the whole picture – not all ads hold the same state; Some of your ads will be loaded, some will also be seen by users, and some will be clicked. Having your ad successfully loaded is great, but it’s not enough, as it doesn’t guarantee that it’s viewable or that users engage with it.
When an ad follows the industry viewability standards mentioned above, we can say it was seen, and has a good chance of leading the user to the advertiser’s desired action. Of course, advertisers aim to turn every seen ad into a clicked one, which means that the user interacted with the ad, demonstrating a high engagement level.
Ads that are loaded but remain unseen or unclicked by users signal a low viewability. But no need to worry! By following the provided guidelines, you can improve your viewability.
Not sure what your viewability metric tells you? Need help with making this work? Drop us a message