Viewability Toolkit

January 12, 2016
2016 Benchmarks for U.S. Publishers and Advertisers
by eHealthcare Solutions

April 2, 2015
Sizmek Viewability Benchmarks Winter 2015
by Sizmek

March 26, 2015
2015 US Digital Future in Focus
Benchmarks on Viewability
by comScore

February 5, 2015
The Value of a Digital Ad
Benchmarks on Non-Human Traffic
by comScore

December 30, 2014
Viewability Benchmarks for 2015
by eHealthcare Solutions

February 2016
Viewability Best Practices for U.S. Healthcare Publishers and Advertisers
by eHealthcare Solutions

October 2015
Mobile Responsive Design – A Must Have in 2015 for Healthcare Publishers
by eHealthcare Solutions

Q1 2014 Viewable Impression Best Practices for Media Buyers & Sellers

by comScore

January 13, 2016
Viewability Case Studies
by eHealthcare Solutions

November 2014
Case Study ConAgra
by comScore

Updated June 30, 2016
MRC Digital Metrics, Companies Accredited

Updated April 2016
Association of Medical Media Viewability Principles

Updated March 2016
IAB’s Primer for Publishers on Improving Ad Viewability

MRC is the Media Rating Council

Updated August 18, 2015
MRC Viewable Ad Impression Guideline

3MS
“Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) is a cross-industry initiative founded by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The Media Rating Council (MRC), an independent body, is responsible for setting and implementing measurement standards.”

December 2014
Digital Ad Verification Whitepaper
by CMI-Compas

April 15, 2015
Non Human Traffic: Why it Matters and Why You Should Care
by comScore

July 19, 2016
WHAT IS 100% VIEWABILITY?
by Molly Kennedy
“Viewable ads are believed to give the advertiser more bang for their buck when paying for premium ad space, but 100% viewabiliy can have different definitions.”

July 1, 2016
100% VIEWABILITY: IS IT REALLY THE BEST BANG FOR YOUR BUCK?
by Kerry Lawlor
“In light of this new viewability standard, publishers and agencies have been forced to restructure their delivery and ad placement strategies. Now many marketers are demanding 100% viewability and putting increased pressure on publishers to hit this perfect target.”

April 4, 2016
Demanding 100% Viewability Makes A Good Headline, But It Isn’t Worth The Price
by Allison Schiff
“According to separate pieces of research conducted by digital marketing agency IMM and programmatic media planning and buying company the Goodway Group, the economics of delivering 100% viewable campaigns don’t make financial sense, at least not yet.”

April 4, 2016
Review of “IAB’s Primer for Publishers on Improving Ad Viewability”
by Renee Kennedy
“In March 2016, the IAB provided a primer for publishers covering the main variables of how to improve ad viewability. You will find a condensed list of best practices in this review.”

February 17, 2016
Tying Payment to Advertising Viewability
by R.J. Lewis
“Media prices have always historically reflected a price for the “opportunity to see” an ad, not a guarantee that the ad would be seen. However, some agencies have jumped on this new technology as a means to renegotiate and pay only for viewable advertising. This sounds great in theory—why pay for impressions that weren’t seen? But in practice, we don’t know which impressions will be seen and which will not until the impression renders.”

February 10, 2016
Recapping AMM’s Viewability Congress – Passionate Testimony from Leaders in Medical Media
by Renee Kennedy
“On February 4, 2016, over 80 influential leaders in medical media, including publishers, agencies, advertisers and other stakeholders, gathered for the AMM Viewability Congress to discuss the viewability standards set by the IAB in 2015. The congress, held by the Association of Medical Media (AMM), sought to gather testimonies of key stakeholders in order to provide viewability guidelines for their publisher membership and agency affiliations. This discussion has been long overdue, but there is still a long way to go to reach consensus. “

February 4, 2016
Are Viewable Ads Actually Effective for Marketers? 10,000-Person Study Sheds Light
by Jeremy Barr
“The study, which the companies said involved 189 different ad scenarios, found that “viewability is highly related to ad effectiveness,” not a major surprise, but also that some ads that don’t meet the Media Rating Council’s standards for viewability can still be effective and have impact for advertisers.”

November 8, 2015
6 Requirements When Relaunching a Publisher Website
by Renee Kennedy
“Last month, eHS helped relaunch DiabetesInControl.com (DIC). As we expected, the impact of mobile responsiveness was apparent: relaunching to a mobile friendly platform has increased mobile traffic by 20%… In order for an ad to even be seen on a mobile device, consider placing a 300×250 directly in your content or article. If you place an ad on the right hand side or left hand side, it can get pushed to the very bottom of the page and will never be seen if people do not scroll all the way to the bottom of the article in the mobile device.”

November 5, 2015
Avoiding Pitfalls When Setting A Viewability Standard
by Tom Hespos
“Predictably, execs at holding company agencies have blown a lot of hot air over the past year when it comes to a viewability threshold. Last year, some agencies even claimed they would only buy ads that were 100 percent viewable – kind of what you might expect a big agency with tons of spending clout to insist upon in order to protect its clients.”

August 20, 2015
MRC Requires Additional Disclosures In Updated Viewability Guidelines
by Tyler Loechner
“…the updates appear focused on bridging the gap between the different measurement vendors. The updated guidelines intend to address “technical nuances, and the discrepancies they can cause,” stated George Ivie, executive director and CEO of the MRC.”

July 28, 2015
Pay Only For Viewability, Prepare For Failure Of Your KPIs
by Andrew Budkofsky
“… a recent article in The Drum showed that viewability rates are only 50% for programmatic impressions and that number is continuing to fall. So what does the agency do knowing this?”

July 17, 2015
Is Your Digital Advertising Viewable
by R.J. Lewis
Soup-to-nuts ad viewability issues from NHT and discrepancies to expectations of advertisers and payments to publishers.

June 10, 2015
Re-Fact-Oring Viewability Measurement
by Sherrill Mane
“Nearly every day, the same questions arise about why viewability matters — and even what it is. Despite the manifold efforts to explain, and the unmeasured though undoubtedly high reach and frequency of trade press articles, blog posts, social media posts, real-world conversations, panels, and outright disputes, there is a reservoir of misunderstanding and misinformation. Among my favorites are…”

June 10, 2015
Disagreement Persists over Viewability Definition
eMarketer.com
“April 2015 research by SQAD suggests that many industry professionals aren’t even aware of the current viewability standards—and most wanted stricter guidelines. Currently, the Media Rating Council (MRC) suggests desktop display ads be counted as viewable when 50% of the ad’s pixels are visible for at least 1 continuous second; however, just 30% of US advertising professionals identified this as the adopted definition for what is considered a viewable desktop display ad. Instead, the majority believed desktop display ads should have 75% or more pixels in-view for at least 1 second.”

April 30, 2015
On Viewability — Understanding the Chatter Better
by Alan James Edwards
“Since the first company was accredited by the MRC for the viewable impression in 2010, the industry has witnessed a tumultuous ride with twists, turns and confusing chatter. To help readers understand the viewable impression speak better, here are a few clarifications on common statements I have heard misused or misunderstood.”

April 7, 2015
Why viewability and programmatic often don’t mix
by Ricardo Bilton
“The data confirms the disparity. Ads served direct to publisher are far more viewable than those served through programmatic deals, according to a recent report from Sizmek, which saw a twenty percent gap in the viewability of flash rich media ads. A similar report from Integral Ad Science found that the average viewable of inventory on exchanges and networks hovers around 42 percent — far lower than the IAB’s 70 percent threshold.”

April 6, 2015
Is the Online Ad Industry Cleaning Up Its Act?
by Jack Marshall
“…any progress that’s being made in relation to viewability is being negated by the lack of progress being made in tackling ad fraud, at least at an industry-wide level.”

March 24, 2015
Open Letter from the ANA, 4A’s and IAB Concerning Measurement
“The ANA, the IAB, and their respective boards, joined by the 4A’s, and the 4A’s Media Leadership Council, fully support the work of the MRC, and want to highlight the latest guidance developed by the MRC.”

March 23, 2015
The Viewable Impression: The First Step To An Audience-Based Digital Currency
by George Ivie
“The development of a Viewable Impression standard represents a key interim step on the road to the goal of establishing an audience-based digital measurement currency that can facilitate an era of effective cross-platform measurement.”

March 2015
Toward Viewability: You Can’t Count What You Haven’t Measured
by Neal Mohan
“While we have made some progress, there is still significant work for us to do as an industry to establish viewability as a currency. The conversation has started to devolve from a collective agreement to tackle the viewability issue to debates over viewability rates and how to value viewable buys. It’s a bit like arguing over whether a recipe needs one egg or two while ignoring the fact that the oven has caught on fire. We are so close to effecting real change on this issue; let’s not lose our nerve now.”

March 2015
State of Viewability Transaction 2015
“We are in the midst of a remarkable transformation, whereby digital media transactions will be based on exposure to individual advertisements, not averages of multiple ads, like TV, or surrogates for exposure like print. With this document, we aim to set the entire industry on a path toward collaboration and consensus in order to provide the best possible outcomes for the greatest number of participants in the shortest amount of time.”

February 24, 2015
Viewability’s elephant in the room: Will advertisers pay more?
by John McDermott
“Publishers want advertisers to pay more for viewable ads, while advertisers think it’s unfair to be upsold on ads that performed their intended duty of reaching online consumers. Sure there are disputes over standardization, but there’s serious tension when it comes to pricing.”

February 5, 2015
Non-Human Traffic Not Rampant, Finds comScore, But It Still Plays A Role
by Tyler Loechner
“A new comScore study reveals that for 79% of digital campaigns, non-human traffic accounts for fewer than 5% of the ads bought and sold (with an average of 1%). For 14% of campaigns, non-human traffic makes up 5%-20% of the pool, and for the remaining 7% of campaigns, over 20% of the ads bought are delivered to bots.”

January 8, 2015
Op-ed: ‘Dark viewability’ and why the IAB has it right
by Jeff Burkett
“Think about this: What happens when an ad impression is actually viewable but the technology vendor isn’t able to measure that properly? If this campaign required 100 percent viewability, then the publisher would not be able to bill for these impressions due solely to the fact that the viewability vendor didn’t do what it was paid to do: measure viewability. Given that most of the Media Ratings Council accredited viewability vendors fail to measure up to 30 percent of impressions and render these viewed impressions completely valueless, couldn’t we call dark viewability a form of fraud?”

May 26, 2015
Viewability FAQ from attendee questions

April 29, 2015
Viewability Panel Presentation
Several slides contain benchmarks and information on viewability, as well as information on the panelists.