Sunday, October 26, 2014

New measurement standards for online ads

Over the past year, the online ad industry has begun to embrace new measurement standards designed to ensure that when advertisers purchase ads, they can actually be seen by consumers.It seems like a rather reasonable request: marketers want to make sure ads are “viewable” and not placed or formatted on Web pages in a way that makes them undetectable to the human eye.
But is this problem real? Experts from comScore believed that it is. Last year they did a study which found that more than half of online ads aren’t actually seen. As a result, the ad industry has tried to shift from the current model, in which ads are sold based on the number of times they are loaded onto a page, to an approach that factors in whether it was possible for consumers to view them.Many advertisers are using ad technology that can tell whether someone scrolls down far enough to see ads and Web publishers have embraced new metrics to show that an ad is viewable.
However current changes are not enough. GroupM, the world’s largest ad-buying firm and its client Unilever, one of the world’s top advertisers, say the early standards being embraced by the online industry don’t go far enough, especially when it comes to online video.GroupM, which controls an estimated $105 billion of annual ad spending around the globe, said it will now ask online video providers to ensure that 100% of the ad player must be in view.
Both GroupM and Unilever also are demanding three additional criteria: 
1. At least 50% of the video must be played while in view
2. The video player’s sound must be turned on throughout the viewing
3. The user must press play, instead of an auto-start.
That is far more stringent than the guidelines the online ad industry and the Interactive Advertising Bureau have embraced, which say that for an online video ad to be deemed viewed, 50% of the ad should be on a user’s screen for at least two consecutive seconds.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/articles/pushing-to-ensure-ads-are-viewable-news-digest-1414366721?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj

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