Ad Viewability Metric Gaining Ground

Michael Garrity — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 16:00:00 GMT

In an effort to add another layer to its analytics, VivaKi has partnered with comScore to offer its VivaKi Nerve Center Audience on Demand users ad viewability metrics that measure how often a digital ad is actually viewed (as opposed to just served).

A “viewable” advertisement displays at least 50 percent of its pixels on a user’s screen and remains there for at least one second.

This new metric will allow VivaKi Nerve Venter customers to pre-optimize their campaigns using insights about which of their ads are most viewable to end users, and thus performing better. However, advertisers will need to opt-in to use the new measurement.

In January, comScore reported that nearly 31 percent of online ads that were purchased by the 12 major brands it studied were not viewable. Just last week, the Media Rating Council accredited comScore’s Campaign Essentials metrics, which include exciting new metrics like brand safety, engagement, in-country geographic delivery and removal of non-human traffic, in addition to viewability.

Measuring viewability over simply impressions is a testament to the progress that has been made in ad analytics. In fact, last year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) said that it wanted the ad marketplace to begin moving towards viewability as the standard metric for studying ad impressions. Another industry coalition wants to get it recognized as the standard by the beginning of 2013.

Research Your Audience with New Tool from Adobe

Michael Garrity — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Without a doubt, the rapid growth in Internet use around the world provides great opportunities for publishers and marketers; however, as it continues to expand quickly, it also presents a few roadblocks. Getting accurate data on relevant metrics about audience size and engagement can be difficult.

Adobe is looking to quell this issue with the immediate availability of Adobe AudienceResearch, a brand new audience measurement tool for publishers and digital marketers that allows them to see "certified metrics on the size and engagement of digital audiences for websites, mobile applications and digital magazine editions."

These valuable metrics are acquired and organized by Adobe SiteCatalyst, the company's very own online analytics application. Publishers will then be provided with crucial information that will help them attract advertisers. All customers currently using SiteCatalyst will receive AudienceResearch for free.

In addition to the release of AudienceResearch, the company also unveiled the Adobe Audience Certification Program. This program is what allows regular publishers to become Adobe Certified Publishers, which simply means that Adobe has certified all of their digital audience data to ensure that it meets specific criteria regarding the accuracy of the data collection and reporting. These publishers will be able to "contribute their data to the AudienceResearch tool."

Much of this has to do with Adobe's recent Media Ratings Council (MRC) accreditation for their SiteCatalyst metrics. The company earned this certification by providing innovative methods of auditing site impletentations of SiteCatalyst and cleansing and certifying raw site traffic to give advertisers and publishers a highly accurate view of digital audience metrics.

What helps set AudienceResearch apart is a census-based measurement of metrics that are generated by counting all relevant traffic, which is "a method considered more accurate and representative of actual traffic and behavior than panel-based methods." The more traditional panel-based approach monitors the behavior of just a small group of volunteers (and then uses the data gathered to create estimate metrics), but now Adobe offers its Certified Publishers the ability to reject this controversial method.

Publishers can now equip their direct sales teams with these highly-accurate and certified metrics (some of which are accredited by the MRC) to show to advertisers as they "make media planning decisions."

"AudienceResearch has the potential to provide the industry with reliable, cross-channel currency for measuring digital audience size and engagement," says Brad Rencher, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Adobe's Digital Marketing Business Unit, "Bringing greater confidence into the digital advertising planning, buying and selling process."

'Net Features : media ratings council

Ad Viewability Metric Gaining Ground

Research Your Audience with New Tool from Adobe