Our metrics you-should-know-by-heart saga continues and today we are talking ad viewability!
Did you know that by having awful ad viewability your CPMs go to hell and it turns your ad inventory’s value into a flaming bag of trash? Okay maybe not that dramatic, but you get the point!
Follow along to learn more about this ultra important metric and what can you do to optimize it. No one’s loosing revenue on our watch!
What is viewability?
Viewability is a metric used to consider how viewable an ad is. An ad needs to be properly viewed for it to cause an impact.
Out of all the impressions your ads have, viewability rate takes into account the ones that were actually viewed and it does this by using some stands. According to the IAB viewability standards, for an impression to be considered viewable are:
- The ad must the at least 50% in viewport for at least one second.
- If the ad has over 242.000 px, then at least 30% must show on screen.
- Video ads must also be in viewport and for at least two seconds.
Why does viewability matter?
The answer is simple. Viewability matters a lot because it impacts your ad revenue.
A high viewability rate translates to a very valuable ad inventory advertisers would like to splurge on. Advertisers want to place their ads in websites that have high rates because for them good viewability on their ads means they get a higher ROI (aka Return of investment if you are feeling fancy) and higher conversions. Also, by having a high rate you as a Publisher get the right to demand premium CPMs for your ad units.
According to a Google’s report on performance: Overview of Viewability and Active View, optimizing your website’s viewable impressions will allow advertisers purchasing viewable impressions on the Google Display Network to purchase extra inventory, show off your site’s high and poor viewability sections so you can concentrate on raising the viewability rate, and assist in determining the likelihood that an advertisement will be clicked.
How to boost viewability?
PLACE YOUR ADS SMARTLY IN YOUR SITE: Find those hotspots in your website users are most likely to see such as after the first paragraph of an article. Check out our tips from our AdOps expert to place ads strategically and maximize viewability.
USE THE RIGHT AD FORMATS: Use rich media high value ad formats that command high CPMs or sticky banners that keep the ad viewable while the user scrolls through a page. Make sure to select the best ad types and sizes for your website that doesn’t disturb user’s experience. Make sure to check out our introduction to Ad Formats so you can choose the perfect ones for your web!
GET FAST LOADING ADS: Ad latency does not only affect tremendously your web’s core vitals but also your viewability and ad revenue. The longer your pages take to load the fastest your user is gonna peace out, so you can say sayonara to that impression for sure. One of our favorite methods to reduce latency here at Refinery89 is Lazy loading . It’s a technique used in programmatic advertising where ads load only when they are visible. Great for avoiding a negative impact on your site’s Core Vitals!
FIND AN AD TECH PARTNER. Get a partner that can run a full analysis of your website. As Publishers ourselves, we know the drill. You can count on our experts here at Refinery89 to take a look at your site and implement the best ad formats for your users!
💡 Recommended read: Viewability best practices – Google Ad Manager Help
What’s the easiest way to measure viewability?
We know we sound like a broken record, but the easiest way to get your websites’ ad monetization metrics are with the Refinery89 Publisher Dashboard!
In the “Revenue” tab, you find you viewability rate among a breakdown of other essential metrics to improve your ad strategy. Keep this statics in check and try to maintain it about 70% or over. That would make you look like a total king o queen in front of an advertiser!
Real-life case
Improving viewability can change your life (literally). Take mbpassion.de for example. THE website for Mercedes Benz fans was looking for a way to optimize ad positioning on the page. So our brilliant AdOps team swooped right in to the rescue! They implemented a series of new high value ad formats and had the ads smartly placed in better spaces on the website, improving user experience and viewability. This resulted in an insane ad revenue increase of 130% for
Read the full success story right here to learn all the details!
Start improving your viewability rate today!
You can have all the traffic in the world but if you fail to meet a good viewability rate by not following the standards, having a bad user experience and ad latency, you are cooked.
You got a friend in us! Reach out to our experts to help you improve viewability.
