Integral Ad Science (IAS) has today released the latest edition of its Media Quality Report, focusing on H2 2021 and illuminating Australian digital media’s performance and quality, alongside global comparisons. You can read the full report HERE.
The report – which is IAS’s 16th edition of its kind – features several illuminating finds, including Australia recording the highest mobile web display viewability rate in the world.
In fact, during 2021’s second half, viewability rates in Australia rose across all platforms.
Mobile web display remained one of the most viewable formats, reporting a 73.0 per cent viewability rate compared to the worldwide rate of 65.6 per cent.
Mobile web video viewability rates were at 77.4 per cent, which is a whopping increase of 10.4pp year-on-year (YoY).
Mobile apps also rose to 77.4 per cent. However, this is slightly below the worldwide average of 77.6 per cent.
The report says the viewability rate increase is likely due to the increased adoption of the IAB Tech Lab’s Open Measurement Software Development Kit.
As for the good old, trusty desktop, viewability rates for desktop video finally reached 80 per cent for the first time ever, finishing with 80.6 per cent.
Desktop display recorded 72.4 per cent viewability rate.
However, while Australia’s ongoing success in desktop ad viewability is commendable, the Media Quality Report also found Australia has the world’s highest rate of desktop video fraud.
Australia also recorded increased ad fraud rates, which saw an optimised against-ad fraud rate of 2.9 per cent, compared to the worldwide average which remained at 1.3 per cent.
Aussie desktop display ad fraud rates were 1.4 per cent, while ad-fraud rates on mobile web display and mobile web video were comparatively slim at 0.4 per cent.
In other good news, brand risk decreased across all channels, which plummeted to historically low levels in H2 2021.
According to the report, the drop resulted from growing adaptation of sophisticated contextual solutions, increasing privacy regulations, and the positive impact contextual alignment brings to the consumer advertising experience.
Desktop display was one of Australia’s lowest brand risk levels at 0.7 per cent, while the worldwide average remained at 1.4 per cent.
Australia recorded the world’s second-lowest brand risk on desktop video at 0.8 per cent, down from 3.6 per cent YoY.
Mobile web display also reported impressive 1.0 per cent brand risk levels, down from 4.2 per cent YoY, while mobile web video reported 1.2 per cent, down 3.4pp YoY.
“Marketers are considering safety and suitability as they adapt to the changing environment,” said IAS country manager ANZ, Jessica Miles (featured image).
“Privacy compliant, contextual targeting, and avoidance, which incorporate sentiment, are deployed to drive audience engagement in high-quality environments. We can see this impact in the significant drop in brand risk across all media buying types.
“Conversely, we have seen an increase in ad fraud across video, and it comes as no surprise, as the video has grown 47.8 per cent year-on-year, according to the IAB OAER, December 2021 report,” she continued.
“Programmatic media quality targeting facilitates buying quality impressions while reducing wastage, a key strategy marketers can deploy to combat the increasing fraud levels across the video.”
Miles said that following the world’s emergence from the challenges of the previous two years, there has been a great focus on efficiency.
“As marketers, we’ve learned that minimising wastage by reducing brand risk and ad fraud, coupled with deploying advanced, privacy-compliant targeting strategies like contextual targeting is a viable solution for driving efficiencies, engagement, and ROI.”
