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How Ad Blocking, Invalid Traffic And Viewability Impact Campaign Delivery

ComScore released an infographic in its Advertising Benchmarks series that looks at how ad blocking, invalid traffic and viewability are impacting ad delivery around the world, and what the industry can do to tackle these challenges.

Some interesting findings: In the U.S., males 18 to 24 are 100% more likely to block desktop ads than the average U.S. Web consumer. Meanwhile, women of the same age group are only 42% more likely to block ads than the average consumer.

That's a pretty big divide. While there's no speculation about that finding, one can draw the conclusion that men are way more impatient than women. 

Video ads on programmatic exchanges where there is less transparency have invalid traffic rates 4.5x direct buys. Warning lights should be going off right about now.

And viewability for desktop display ads ranges from 39% to 50% across markets. In fact, comScore finds that more than half of ads worldwide don’t have the opportunity to be seen. Among the 10 markets studied, the U.S. came in at 48% on video viewability, Italy and Spain came in at 49% and Canada at 50%.

The fact that comScore found that programmatic platforms heighten the problem of invalid traffic should be cause for concern.

“It’s no surprise that the challenge of invalid traffic (IVT) is magnified on programmatic platforms, where there can still be a lack of transparency about inventory quality. As digital ad dollars continue to shift to programmatic, it’s critical that we incorporate learnings from sophisticated IVT detection into our platforms to help the quality inventory stand out,” Duncan Trigg, senior vice president of advertising, comScore, told RTBlog via email.

“This allows media buyers to take precautionary measures to safeguard campaign delivery up front, in addition to using in-flight sophisticated IVT filtration to evaluate delivery quality throughout the campaign. It’s a dual approach that helps advertisers achieve both peace of mind and better ROI,” Trigg said.  

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