Testing on ads that adhere to the Internet Advertising Bureau’s guidelines for viewability show that 70% is the figure marketers should be aiming for.
Ad management group Sizmek recently went about assessing some of the claims made in the ‘IAB’s State of Viewability Transaction 2015’ report, where the association was forced to accept that 100% ad viewability was not yet possible.
However, the IAB said campaigns reaching the 70% mark for viewability – or the percentage of ads that are at least 50% in view of the user – should be seen as a the minimum standard in the current environment.
Sizmek found that by using this as a benchmark, advertisers could benefit from “significantly higher performance” in click-throughs and other interactions from their campaigns.
Out with the old, in with the new
In evidence that new technology and standards could mean better performance, ad formats running through HTML5 gained better viewability rates than their Flash counterparts.
Click-through rates for HTML5 banners were at 0.41% worldwide for campaigns running off the 70% viewability benchmark, with Flash ads managing 0.28% with the same standard.
Sizmek’s test also lauded the impact of Interactive ad formats when it came to viewability. On a global scale, viewability for Flash standard banners froze at 50.8%, with Flash Rich Media formats managing 59.7%.
In full view
Overall, the study hailed viewability as an “influential step” towards welcoming a new ad performance metric.
According to Alex White, VP of product strategy at Sizmek, the tests also confirm that advertisers could do much worse than following new industry guidelines for ad views.
“The specifics and definitions will no doubt continue to be debated, but the recent efforts at standardising viewability terminology move the industry toward a more transparent marketplace for digital ads, and our research backs that up,” he commented.
“Clearly, measuring whether an ad is viewable gives the industry a starting point for trading in true engagement.”