• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, April 1, 2014

According to PointRoll, a total of 60.4% of online ads were viewable in 2013. That's a slightly more optimistic figure than the oft-cited 50% rate.

The data comes from PointRoll's Benchmarks Report 2013. The Gannett company looked at over 100 billion ad impressions from various ad exchanges and measured the viewability of each using its own technology. They followed the IAB standards for measuring viewability, but did not reveal which ad exchanges were used for the study or the proportions.

Sports & Recreation and Employment publisher channels had the highest viewability rates in 2013, each checking in at 72.6%. News sites weren’t far behind at 70.7%, followed by Comics & Humor (67.6%) and Games (67.5%).

On the whole, ad viewability increased 14% year-over-year. PointRoll said 20 of the 23 publisher channels it measured saw viewability increase year-over-year, with B2B publishers (35.6% increase) and ad networks (35.4%) leading the way. Advertising/marketing publishers increased viewability by 23.5% in 2013.

The full report, including data on the performance of certain ad types, formats and sizes, can be found here.