Helen Miall, head of marketing EMEA, Turn, questions whether advertisers should be basing their media spend on viewability alone.

For a while I believed that viewability (where ads are measured on whether they can be seen) was yet again another self-inflicting metric that we, in the digital industry, are so good at coming up with. The sense of injustice was compounded by the fact that not all media is treated and measured in the same way; and viewability is no exception, when we look at TV.

However, the pressure to count viewability as a valid metric has gathered pace over recent years, as marketing teams seek ways to measure real, proven ROI. As a result, many advertisers are behind viewability as a valid metric. The IAB was urged to launch viewability standards for the first time in 2014; and now the industry body instructs that 50% of pixels must be in the viewable portion of an internet browser for a minimum of one second to qualify as a viewable display impression for a standard display ad. The pressure to standardise viewability has put the metric into the spotlight. However, whilst measurement is key to regulate the industry, advertisers should analyse viewability data further to ask: what can this metric tell me – and, does it tell me enough?

For example, a newly-published study conducted by Google about video advertising reveals that 46% of the desktop and mobile video ads it serves, outside of YouTube, never have the chance to be seen. As a result of reports on viewability like this, brands, including Kellogg’s, are pulling out of advertising on these platforms. Advertisers are clearly taking this metric seriously to determine their budget, but viewability should not be a measurement goal unto itself.

Without audience insights, viewability is a 2D metric

In my opinion, viewability is a useful tool – it can help marketers increase the odds that their ads will be seen by real people by guaranteeing how and where it will be seen. However, it is important to keep in mind what viewability does not provide – and that is a measurement of audience engagement. Actually engaging a viewer depends on many factors; relevant and accurate targeting, ad creative, player size and so on. There are metrics that report on engagement – completion rate, completion quartile, audio, and more.

Brands need to know that their ads are making an impact

One way that brands can demonstrate engagement with ads and viewability is through ‘time in view’. This can provide additional insight into how long the ad could be seen, which also increases the probability that a message was actually recognised and understood by a person. Advertisers can also utilise additional measurements such as brand lift surveys, or attention metrics like heat maps to see where users’ attention tends to focus on web pages. For video, engagement can be measured by completion rate and audio controls, for example was the audio playing while the ad played or was it turned off?

Understand viewability to guarantee media buys

Another challenge with viewability is that not all media is measurable in that way. However, does that mean that the media is no longer valuable to your business? In an upfront purchase, the buyer has no control mid-flight on frequency capping or budget reallocation, so it is natural that brands want to understand upfront what they will be getting for their money. Unfortunately, given the large number of impressions that are not measurable as viewable or non-viewable, optimising viewability can reduce the reach of a campaign, which will negatively impact its scale and overall ROI. Understanding the viewability status of your guaranteed buys is critical as many premium publishers may not actually be measurable in that way.

Fend off fraudsters and be confident in your audience engagement levels

In addition, the most important aspect of viewability (that is often confused with its measurement) is the real need to filter non-human traffic and reduce publisher fraud. Many industry participants are actively working to improve the detection and filtering of nonhuman traffic to rid themselves of these bad actors. However, cleaning up fraud is not limited to brand campaigns measuring viewability.

As such, non-human traffic and fraud ought to be filtered from all campaigns, upfront or programmatic, brand or direct response. Brands must only bid on inventory, browser and apps that they’ve seen before, as common fraud tactics are to change site names and cookies frequently to avoid tracking. Third-party fraud solutions can also be used to help identify fraudulent situations. Using white and black lists can ensure bids are made on preferred sites and apps (via white lists) and that sites and apps that have not worked well in the past are ignored. Turn also has a Fraud Task Force in place specifically designed to monitor potential fraud and investigate additive fraud combat measures.

In short, viewability should be seen as just one of the tools that’s available to help brands ensure their advertising campaigns successfully meet their goals for reducing fraud, showcasing their ads in brand safe environments that are contextually relevant to their audiences, reaching the broadest audience possible, and engaging with audiences to ultimately meet their company’s marketing objectives — driving revenue for the brand.

We’ve found that advertisers are open to this way of thinking because after all, the rules of marketing are still largely unchanged. Even as we all learn how to market in a digital world, what still matters is:

• Volume – how many prospects did you reach
• Velocity – are your prospects moving through their purchase journey
• Value – are you maximising the value from each customer

Programmatic tools make it easier to use data-driven information at scale to reap the best results possible by understanding all of the variables and helping you attribute them to the right cause and effect. Marketing is made up of more different parts now than ever before (from channels and formats to devices and audience segments) and brands must ensure that they create campaigns that take these many variables into account. Taking an audience-first approach enables advertisers to do that. Make audience engagement the focus of your measurement to make an impact.