• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, June 4, 2014

Since the Media Rating Council (MRC) lifted its advisory on viewability ratings a little over two months ago, the digital ad industry has been quick to react.

There have been a slew of partnerships between media-buying platforms and viewability vendors, but AppNexus, one of the leading ad tech providers in the market, is taking it one step further. The company on Wednesday announced it has acquired Alenty, a Paris-based viewability measurement firm. Alenty is an MRC-accredited vendor.

AppNexus declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal.

"AppNexus has always stood behind the idea that better advertising creates a better Internet, and solving the issue of viewability is critical to that mission," stated Brian O'Kelley, CEO, AppNexus.

Alenty was founded in 2007 by CEO Laurent Nicolas and chief technology officer Nicolas Thomas. The company has offices in Paris and the UK and clients throughout Europe, per a release.

Alenty’s viewability tech has been available through the AppNexus App Marketplace since 2011, but following the acquisition it will be fully baked into AppNexus’ media-buying platform. O’Kelley stated that Alenty’s tech will become a “fundamental component” of the platform.

A display ad is considered “viewable” if it at least 50% of it is in-view of a user's screen for at least one second. Per many viewability rating vendors on the market -- Alenty included -- only about 50% of all online ads are considered viewable.

While the market has increased its focus on viewability in recent months, progress has been slow. Per a recent Integral Ad Science report, 51.3% of ads served on programmatic exchanges were viewable in Q2 2014, up just a little from the 47.4% rate in Q1.