Source: TheDrum
Advertisers in UK lost over £600m to non-viewable online adverts last year, according to ad verification company Meetrics.
Looking at 2016 as a whole, over half of banner adverts failed to meet the IAB and Media Ratings Council’s recommendation that 50% of an ad was in view for at least 1 second. Despite a promising start in the first quarter (where 54% of ads served met the requirements) the remaining three quarters fell below the mark.
In total £606m was lost from UK advertisers’ pockets to non-viewable adverts.
This fuels the ongoing debate over viewabiltiy – what defines it and how advertisers should ultimately measure (and pay). Unilever’s top marketer, Keith Weed, for example is conclusive in his judgement that he should only be paying for an ad if it is 100% in view.
Although not everyone would agree – aiming for 100% puts an advertiser at risk of doing more harm than good to a campaign, according to ISBA – the findings from Meetrics indicate that despite the ongoing attention and initiatives to improve viewability, online ads continue to fall short.
“Yes, you can argue viewability has stabilised over the last couple of quarters and is marginally up on six months ago but the reality is viewability levels are lower than a year ago and over half of ads served still aren’t viewable,” said Anant Joshi, director of international business at Meetrics.
The UK is significantly behind other European countries in terms of viewability level. In Austria 68 per cent of ads are viewable, while Germany is at 58 per cent and France at 57 per cent.
