Adman

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes an ad impression "Viewable"?

The Making-Measurement-Make-Sense® initiative has defined a Viewable Impression for display ads as an ad where at least 50% is rendered on the screen and is present for at least one second.

The viewable impression standard for display and video is expected to be finalized by mid 2014.

What are the reasons an ad may not be accounted as viewable?

Here are the reasons, as listed on Wikipedia.

• The viewer clicks to another web page before the ad loads and renders.
• The ad loads, but in an area of the web page that is not within the viewer's browser window dimensions and scrolling position.
• The requests made by spiders, crawlers, web-directories, download managers, link checkers, proxy servers, web filtering tools, harvesters, spambots (This is bad botssue may be addressed in part already by a standard ad server following IAB guidelines but more study needs to done to assess whether all non human technology is identified by the current approaches and whether viewable impression technology can improve on those measures. Current assessments suggests improvement with viewable impression methodology).
• The viewer has a particular type of ad blocker installed that could disrupt ad serving but still be initiate the count of an impression. (Some ad blockers block the ad call, some do not. More study should be done in this area).
• The viewer does not have the proper plug-in to render interactive media installed.
• The viewer opens a page in a mobile device that is not configured to show the ad content.
• The viewer minimizes the browser.
• The viewer opens another browser window or another application.
• The viewer opens another browser tab.
• The viewer switches focus to another browser or application.
• The viewer moves the browser window so the ad is outside the display screen area.
• The viewer has multiple home pages set so when the browser is opened, two pages open in two tabs, and an ad resides on the tab that is not in focus
• In the case of pre-roll video and video advertising, if the viewer minimizes the browser, tabs away from, or opens another application over the video while the advertisement is playing or moves the browser window so the video is outside the display screen area.

How come an ad placed above-the-fold isn't always viewable?

An ad placed above-the-fold isn't always viewable — and is often overpriced.

A user may scroll down quickly to the content that he is interested in or click immediately on an link, so that the ad was visible to user's screen for less than a second.

Besides, a user could close the window or switch tabs, so focus is lost and the ad, even if it rendered above-the-fold, isn't measured as viewable.

Does ADMAN support Viewability?

Yes.

ADMAN already supports Viewablity for all ad-formats for all browsers and operating systems.

ADMAN accounts an ad as viewable when 37.500 pixels or at least 50% of the ad is visible for at least one second while the browser's window or tab is 'in focus'.

What ad formats can ADMAN measure viewability for?

ADMAN can measure all types of ad formats, such us standard, expandable, floating, Rising Stars®, even images and HTML5 ads.

And what about iFrames?

IFrame measuring was one of the main challenges that IAB and 3MS faced in the attempt to reach a viewability standard.

Publishers often choose to serve ads through IFrames, cross-domain windows through which ad content is delivered as a display ad.

An IFrame ad is completely isolated from the rest of the publisher's website, so the ad is unable to access any information on the page where it is served. This normally protects the publisher and the consumer from security risks, but also restricts measuring the viewability of the ad itself.

Nevertheless ADMAN development has overcome the obstacle of IFrame cross-domain restrictions and now supports viewability measurement across different domains.

Should every publisher use ADMAN in order to provide viewability metrics?

No, ADMAN works with all major ad-servers out of the box.

What Viewability percentage is considered to be a "good" one?

Generally speaking, an average viewable rate above 60% is considered desirable.

However, the viewability rate is bound both to ad-formats and the webpage content/layout a creative is rendered in.

The highest viewability rate ADMAN has registered was 91.46% on a 300x250 creative, whereas the lowest rate was 11.20%, again on 300x250 creative.

Based on ADMAN served campaigns run the past 3-4 months:

• 10% of sites delivered over 75% viewability
• 23.1% of sites delivered 60-75% viewability
• 28.9% of sites delivered 45-60% viewability
• 29.6% of sites delivered 25-45% viewability
• 8.3% of sites delivered below 25% viewability

How will Viewability for my campaigns be reported?

Viewability metrics are already included in all ADMAN reports associated with impressions.