A new study from Think with Google looked at dis­play adver­tis­ing plat­forms, includ­ing Google and Dou­bleClick, to deter­mine what affects an ad’s viewa­bil­i­ty and found five fac­tors that impact the extent to which ads are seen. Specif­i­cal­ly, the study found:

1. A small num­ber of pub­lish­ers are serv­ing most of the non-view­able impres­sions. In fact, Google says, 56.1 per­cent of all impres­sions it mea­sured are not seen, but the aver­age pub­lish­er viewa­bil­i­ty is 50.2 per­cent.
2. In addi­tion, Google says, page posi­tion mat­ters. In oth­er words, the most view­able posi­tion is right above the fold, not at the top of the page.
3. Ad size mat­ters, too. Google says the most view­able ad sizes are ver­ti­cal units and that means pub­lish­ers should con­sid­er which ad sizes are most effec­tive at dif­fer­ent page posi­tions when mak­ing ad place­ment and lay­out deci­sions.
4. Fur­ther, page posi­tion isn’t always the best indi­ca­tor of viewa­bil­i­ty. Not all above-the-fold impres­sions are view­able, while many below-the-fold impres­sions are, Google says. In fact, Google found medi­an viewa­bil­i­ty for above-the-fold ad units is 68 per­cent while medi­an viewa­bil­i­ty for below-the-fold ad units is 40 per­cent.

Because viewa­bil­i­ty varies sig­nif­i­cant­ly by page posi­tion and ad size, Google says adver­tis­ers should con­sid­er the rela­tion­ship between the two while plan­ning cre­ative and tar­get­ing. And because page posi­tion “doesn’t tell the whole sto­ry,” Google says adver­tis­ers should ulti­mate­ly tar­get based on viewa­bil­i­ty mea­sure­ments to achieve the best results. Viewa­bil­i­ty can also help pub­lish­ers bet­ter iden­ti­fy and mon­e­tize valu­able below-the-fold inven­to­ry, Google adds.

5. In addi­tion, Google says viewa­bil­i­ty varies sig­nif­i­cant­ly across con­tent ver­ti­cals, with the high­est viewa­bil­i­ty belong­ing to sites asso­ci­at­ed with “more cap­tive engage­ment,” like ref­er­ence, online com­mu­ni­ties, and games.

Adver­tis­ers seek­ing view­able impres­sions should there­fore steer towards high viewa­bil­i­ty sites and con­sid­er tar­get­ing sites with more engag­ing con­tent to achieve high­er viewa­bil­i­ty rates, Google rec­om­mends. Viewa­bil­i­ty data can also help pub­lish­ers increase the long-term val­ue of their dis­play inven­to­ry, Google adds.

Google says it con­duct­ed research using its Active View tech­nol­o­gy because there is increased inter­est in viewa­bil­i­ty among adver­tis­ers and pub­lish­ers after the Media Rat­ing Coun­cil lift­ed the view­able trans­ac­tion advi­so­ry ear­li­er this year, which rec­om­mend­ed the mar­ket­place refrain from trans­act­ing on view­able impres­sions as a dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing cur­ren­cy met­ric until issues relat­ed to the mea­sure­ment of view­able impres­sions could be resolved.

Since its imple­men­ta­tion in 2012, the MRC says mea­sure­ment tech­niques have evolved and “inno­v­a­tive ways have emerged that have enhanced the abil­i­ty of mea­sur­ers to deter­mine an ad’s viewa­bil­i­ty in numer­ous chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ments” and the lim­i­ta­tions on viewa­bil­i­ty mea­sure­ment had large­ly improved.

Accord­ing to the MRC, a view­able impres­sion occurs when 50 per­cent of an ad’s pix­els are on screen for one sec­ond.

The data used in Google’s study was based on dis­play ads in browsers and did­n’t include mobile in-app and video ads, Google adds.

The IAB, which is part of Mak­ing Mea­sure­ment Make Sense, or 3MS, a cross-indus­try ini­tia­tive that says it seeks to rev­o­lu­tion­ize the way dig­i­tal media is mea­sured, planned and trans­act­ed across the adver­tis­ing indus­try in order to make it a more valu­able medi­um for every­one involved in brand adver­tis­ing, says it is impor­tant for pub­lish­ers to tran­si­tion to view­able impres­sions because view­able impres­sions mean mar­keters will have more assur­ance that their ads have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be seen and they will be encour­aged to pur­chase dig­i­tal media because of its com­pa­ra­bil­i­ty to lega­cy media.

Not only will this allow mar­keters to invest more con­fi­dent­ly in dig­i­tal media and more intel­li­gent­ly allo­cate their bud­gets between dig­i­tal and oth­er media.

“It will like­ly dri­ve a stronger and more pros­per­ous dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing indus­try over­all,” accord­ing to the IAB. “Tran­si­tion­ing from a served impres­sion stan­dard to a view­able impres­sion stan­dard is the num­ber one guid­ing prin­ci­ple in the Five Guid­ing Prin­ci­ples of Dig­i­tal Mea­sure­ment as defined by the 3MS ini­tia­tive. It will allow for, among oth­er advances, the for­ma­tion of a dig­i­tal gross rat­ing point that pro­vides reach and fre­quen­cy report­ing of view­able impres­sions and cross-plat­form com­par­isons.”

And, per com­Score, both media buy­ers and sell­ers can ben­e­fit from lever­ag­ing mea­sure­ment to improve cam­paign and inven­to­ry per­for­mance.

That’s because opti­miz­ing for viewa­bil­i­ty improves brand­ing impact for adver­tis­ers, com­Score says. With its part­ner ConA­gra Foods, for exam­ple, using viewa­bil­i­ty and audi­ence guar­an­tees achieved increas­es in attribute aware­ness lift of up to 70 per­cent and increas­es in pur­chase intent lift of up to 30 per­cent.

Per com­Score, adver­tis­ers and agen­cies must also com­mu­ni­cate their audi­ence and viewa­bil­i­ty goals and estab­lish a process for eval­u­at­ing per­for­mance.

What’s more, inte­grat­ed viewa­bil­i­ty and in-tar­get report­ing improves the accu­ra­cy of per­for­mance data. Com­Score says analy­sis of cam­paign data showed that viewa­bil­i­ty and val­i­da­tion rates var­ied across demo­graph­ic breaks, mean­ing that the com­mon prac­tice of apply­ing a flat viewa­bil­i­ty rate from one mea­sure­ment ven­dor across the audi­ence data from anoth­er mea­sure­ment ven­dor will often lead to under- or over-valu­ing ad deliv­ery across audi­ence seg­ments. To under­stand the true per­for­mance of the ad cam­paign, adver­tis­ers and agen­cies should use an undu­pli­cat­ed val­i­dat­ed in-tar­get met­ric, com­Score says.

Pub­lish­ers should use tools to enhance their viewa­bil­i­ty and audi­ence deliv­ery. Anoth­er com­Score part­ner, CafeMom, used comScore’s vME mea­sure­ment plat­form to iden­ti­fy key adver­tis­ing inven­to­ry on its sites that had room for improve­ment and then test­ed new design strate­gies to bring up their viewa­bil­i­ty rates. Ulti­mate­ly, CafeMom more than dou­bled the viewa­bil­i­ty of this inven­to­ry, great­ly improv­ing the val­ue of one of its most com­mon ad slots, com­Score says.

Pub­lish­ers should also set expec­ta­tions for cam­paign deliv­ery. That means know­ing the qual­i­ty of their inven­to­ry and, once goals are set, they should make sure they have access to the same cam­paign data the adver­tis­er is using to track deliv­ery, com­Score says. This empow­ers pub­lish­ers to make changes to ensure the qual­i­ty of their deliv­ery and to meet the audi­ence and viewa­bil­i­ty guar­an­tees through­out the cam­paign.

Pub­lish­ers should also con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tor and opti­mize their inven­to­ry, com­Score says, to ensure adver­tis­ers are sat­is­fied that their ads are run­ning on high-qual­i­ty inven­to­ry that will give their cam­paigns the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make an impact on their audi­ence.