Research Shows The Limits Of Viewability

by Tobi Elkin , February 9, 2016

Quantcast, a provider of real-time advertising services, on Tuesday released research findings that challenge traditional notions of viewability. The study found that given current levels of viewable ad inventory, optimizing to high viewability goals can be potentially detrimental to both online ad campaign performance and the ability to fully complete campaigns.

The research, which focused on the U.K. market, was conducted over three years and analyzed five billion impressions per month across 10,000 publishers. Among the key findings:

Only 3% of European ad inventory is available at a 80% + campaign viewability goal. The number rises to 6% with a 70% goals.
An average of 16% of U.K. inventory is not measurable from a viewability perspective.
At 75% to 100% viewability, inventory is 92% more expensive than the RTB average.
97% of European ad inventory is not available at 80%+ viewability goals.

The Quantcast “Viewability: What Smart Marketers Need to Know” guide evaluated all major Media Rating Council-accredited viewability vendors in multiple rounds of testing.

The research indicates that aiming for high viewability goals can compromise the ability to deliver an entire campaign and achieve the desired reach. Equally troubling was the finding that at a 75% + viewability goal, inventory costs, on average, are nearly twice as much as for standard RTB inventory available.

“Viewability is a global issue,” Amit Kotecha, head of marketing EMEA, Quantcast, told Real-Time Daily via email. “We run the same research in the U.S. and have seem similar levels of viewability rates. The main recommendation that we make to advertisers (in particular brand advertisers) is to make sure that they are measuring viewability and understanding the technology.”

He added: "There’s still a huge educational gap that has to be filled, which is why we carried out this research and train all of our clients on the challenges and opportunities of measuring and optimizing towards viewable goals.”

Kotecha said advertisers should work with their technology partners to determine the right viewability goals for each campaign.

programmatic, rtb, viewability

4 comments about "Research Shows The Limits Of Viewability".

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Joshua Chasin from KnotSimpler, February 10, 2016 at 10:57 a.m.
I'm not sure what the news is here. We know a lot of digital inventory isn't viewable. And we know (indeed, it was kind of the point) that highly viewable inventory will be more expensive. And, we know that a lot of the crap inventory lives in the RTB/exchange world. Surely Quantycast isn'ty clling on advettisers to reach their reach goals with impressions no one ever sees?
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Joshua Chasin from KnotSimpler replied, February 10, 2016 at 10:59 a.m.

Sorry about the typos. "Quantcast isn't calling on...", not "Quantycast isn'ty clling on..."

Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, February 10, 2016 at 3:35 p.m.

Ultimately, digital ad sellers will have to face up to the fact that advertisers---particularly of the TV-oriented "branding type"---are going to make comparisons between digital and linear TV options when it comes to CPMs and ad viewability. Digital is not operating in a vacuum, nor is it in the driver's seat when it comes to delivering ad mesages using sight, sound and motion, to large audiences at reasonable CPMs. If advertisers who use what amount to TV commercials on digital platforms are "penalized" for insisting that their messages have at least an opportunity to be seen in their entirety----as is always the case with TV-----and the resulting digital CPMs become 5-10 times above what is generally available on TV, then many will opt out of digital or reduce their spending to small, highly targeted, "supportive" levels.

dorothy higgins from Mediabrands WW, February 11, 2016 at 10:20 a.m.

Any efforts to evaluate the audience cost (CPM) of digital video versus linear TV must use a vCPM for the digital properties to have at least an apples to crab-apples comparison. This requires viewability discount on a partner by partner basis and will require some serious internal deconstruction of programmatic buys.