The MRC states that 50% or more of a display ad’s pixels should be in-view for 1 continuous second or longer, or 2 continuous seconds for video.
The metric for CPM impressions has been the historic way for digital advertising to be sold, which shaped a digital media landscape that often rewarded quantity over quality. However, there have been increasing demands from advertisers and brands to meet these MRC viewability standards, to allow quality to become the focus, compared to the quantity. Additionally, audience time and engagement are a hot topic for these advertisers in the ever evolving world of programmatic.
Research taken from ad tech provider Mixpo in April 2016 shows that 29% of US digital ad professionals said they were extremely concerned about viewability, followed closely by a similarly important issue of attribution and measurement. Only 3% reported that they were not at all concerned about the issue.
The data showed that both viewability, and attribution and measurement in digital advertising were areas of high concern for respondents: 69% said they were extremely or very concerned. In contrast, the increase of social media and the lack of quality display inventory were circumstances that were least worrisome. More than 20% of practitioners at publishing companies said they were not concerned at all with these areas.
The industry understands that to achieve better measures for engagement effectiveness with digital ads, the viewability standard needs to be recognised.
“We knew that viewability was just a building block,” said Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next (DCN). “Once we know an ad has the opportunity to be seen, the most important metric to add to that is the time in which the ad has been exposed to the audience.”
Download our Media Quality Whitepaper to learn the best practice tips on how to protect your brand online through programmatic advertising, looking in detail at Ad Fraud, Brand Safety and Viewability.