Industry trade bodies to drive down discrepancies in ad viewability metrics next quarter
The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and other trade bodies are pushing forward with the next phase of ad viewability standards, which will see them look to cut the amount of discrepancies in how it is measured.
Ad viewability, which refers to whether or not an ad is deemed in-view to consumers on websites, remains an ongoing challenge as there is no standard currency for how it’s traded among tech vendors.
The IAB is joined by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA), and the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) in driving out discrepancies in viewability metrics.
The IAB earlier this year released guidelines on viewability standards, which specify that for a display ad to be in-view, half the pixels must be in the viewable portion of an internet browser for at least one second. It is yet to release full guidelines for video and mobile, which it will look to do next year.
To date four companies have been accredited in the UK by the ABC to measure viewability – ComScore, DoubleVerify, Integral AdScience and Moat.
However, there remain discrepancies in how it is measured even between accredited vendors.
Discrepancies can range from 50 per cent to as little as a few percentage points, according to Steve Chester, head of data and industry programmes at the IAB.
"There are ongoing viewability discrepancies between vendors which remains a challenge. The next stage will see us set up a baseline set of principles in terms of how they measure viewability – so everyone counting it in same way. We want to get done very quickly if we can.
"Currently you can have an agency go with one tech supplier, and a publisher may go with another, both of which have received accreidation – but they are still having discrepancies. Some of the discrepanciess are minor but sometimes quite large – which makes it hard to trade on it.
"We, along with JICWEBS and all the other trade bodies, want to reduce it to stage where there is only a 10 per cent or less discrepancy between vendors," he said.
His comments follow the release of Google’s first ad viewability study, which highlighted that 56 per cent of online display ads are not actually seen by consumers.
Ad viewability is an area that is tackled by JICWEBS, whose members represent media owners, buyers, and advertisers from the Association of Online Publishers (AOP), IAB, IPA and ISBA.