Believed to be seen

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When advertisers pay for an ad, they want people to see it. But estimates are that, in 2012 at least, 1.8 trillion online display ads were paid for but could not be seen. No wonder marketers are counting down the days to the arrival of the ‘viewability’ metric.

Viewability measurement has long been heralded as the answer to the question of how to get advertisers to spend more money on digital brand advertising. Direct response advertisers have their clickthroughs and conversion metrics. But brand advertisers want to know that their ads are being seen by the right audience and that their target audience is becoming more aware of their brand as a result.

But brand advertisers have good reason to suspect that digital hasn’t been delivering the goods for them. An oft-quoted study by ComScore, first published in June, found that 54% of display ads do not have the opportunity to be seen by consumers.

Then, a follow-up eye-tracking study by the technology company Sticky raised this figure to 77%. Using webcams to monitor where people looked on screen, Sticky determined that an additional 23% of ads were technically viewable – more than 50% of their pixels were in a visible space for at least one second – but they weren’t looked at.

For the time being, however, advertisers aren’t demanding a measurement system that only counts when an ad is seen. As long as the ad has the opportunity to be seen, advertisers will move a step closer to being able to make “apples-to-apples, cross-platform comparisons that will increase marketer confidence in the development of intelligent and capable multi-screen marketing plans,” wrote Bob Liodice, the president and CEO of the Association of National Advertisers in an August blog post.

There’s just a bit longer left to wait. By the end of the first quarter of next year, the Media Rating Council – the US media measurement auditor – is expected to have lifted an advisory opinion that warned the industry off making a premature shift to viewability as a trading currency. But once it lifts, “marketers will eagerly start buying digital media on viewable metrics”, says Liodice, adding: “Publishers and agencies, we hope you’re ready.”