IAB Australia Delivers World First Viewability Benchmarks

IAB Australia has confirmed its position on Viewability, announcing the publication of its promised white paper which details seven key areas around viewability and also delivers the first tranche of viewability benchmarking data.

The data was collected by PwC and supported by Comscore, Integral Ad Science (IAS) and Moat who collaborated to provide industry data. IAB Australia has confirmed that the benchmarking data will be published every six months.

The seven principles outlined in the Viewability White Paper include:

The IAB viewability standard is the MRC standard
The IAB is committed to driving viewability
Non-viewable and non-measurable does not equal fraud
Independent measurement is an absolute necessity to measure viewability
The IAB will work with the vendors to publish viewability benchmarks every six months
The IAB encourages publishers, agencies and clients to work together to drive continuous improvement
IAB recognises the importance of viewability but notes other variables drive business returns

According to Vijay Solanki, IAB Australia is the first in the world to pull together viewability data from competitive ad tech companies to deliver an independent and transparent measure of average viewability.

“It’s great to have a world first benchmark with collaboration in the taskforce across publishers, ad tech and agencies. Viewability is complex and we’ve tried to simplify where we can. Whilst viewability is important, there are other variables to consider.

“We look forward to healthy engagement on the white paper as we work with the industry to take this work forward,” said Solanki.

Gai Le Roy, director of research at IAB, commented, “For anyone with a good understanding of the digital market the benchmark data will be no surprise as it’s in line with numbers that have been previously published by individual vendors.

“However the collaboration of the three vendors to provide robust market level data will support ongoing independent and transparent discussions in market.”

The benchmark data shows that viewability rates for direct buys in Australia are significantly higher than inventory through programmatic means, though premium inventory bought programmatically is likely to have high rates than non-premium inventory.

The data also shows considerable difference in viewability rates for different desktop creative format sizes ranging between 45 per cent and 76 per cent.

Accordingly to Le Roy, the variance in viewability is influenced by site design, the ad position on a page and also whether the creative ad unit uses the industry recommended LEAN digital advertising principles (Light, Encypted, Ad choice supported; and Non-invasive).

The Viewability Task Force members who prepared the white paper and managed the benchmark research process include: Carsales, Comscore, Fairfax, Google, Ikon Communications, Inskinmedia, Integral Ad Science, Moat, Newscorp, Nine, OMD, REA, Starcom, Telstra, Tube Mogul, Videology, and Yahoo!7.

Viewability, which is about the ‘opportunity to see’ rather than engagement or ad effectiveness, sets the baseline for measuring advertising efficiency. As a result defining and understanding viewability it is essential for all other aspects of campaign success.

Viewability is about the “opportunity to see.” It is not about engagement or ad effectiveness.

Non-measured impressions do not equal impressions that are not viewable.
Non-measured impressions do not equal fraudulent impressions.
Buyer and Seller should agree on a single measurement vendor ahead of time
If employing viewability measurement it is highly recommended that a MRC accredited vendor is used.

The Viewability Whitepaper will be available on the IAB website at the end of the week.

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