Tag Archives: viewability

Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 4 ways to improve ad layouts for better viewability

Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.

On this blog, we're breaking down the best practices into small, approachable chunks. Already, we've focused on 2 tips for enabling viewability measurement, and 3 speedy ways to improve viewability. In this post you'll learn tips for laying out ads on a webpage or scrollable page in an app in order to improve viewability rates.

Here is today's recommendation:

We hope these recommendations are improving your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below.

In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 3 content and ad loading methods that can improve viewability.

Source: Inside AdMob


Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 3 Speedy Ways To Improve Viewability

Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.

Recently on the blog, we focused on 2 tips for enabling viewability measurement. In this post you'll learn tips for improving ad viewability by optimizing your apps and sites for speed and responsiveness.

Here is today's recommendation:



We hope these recommendations are improving your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below.

In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 4 ways to improve ad layouts for better viewability rates.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran,
Product Marketing Manager

Source: Inside AdMob


Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 3 speedy ways to improve viewability

Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.

Recently on the blog, we focused on 2 tips for enabling viewability measurement. In this post you'll learn tips for improving ad viewability by optimizing your apps and sites for speed and responsiveness.

Here is today's recommendation:



We hope these recommendations are improving your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below.

In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 4 ways to improve ad layouts for better viewability rates.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran,
Product Marketing Manager

Source: Inside AdSense


Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 2 tips to enable viewability measurement

There's a lot that publishers and app developers can do to increase the likelihood that their ads will be measured as viewable. Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability across four categories based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology. These insights and recommendations come from our services teams that have spent thousands of hours working with publishers and developers to improve advertising outcomes.

In this post, we focus on tips you can use to improve ad viewability by optimizing your apps and sites for speed and responsiveness.

Here is today's recommendation:



We hope these recommendations will improve your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below. 

In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 3 speedy ways to improve viewability.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran,
Product Marketing Manager

Source: Inside AdSense


Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 2 Tips to Enable Viewability Measurement

There's a lot that publishers and app developers can do to increase the likelihood that their ads will be measured as viewable. Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability across four categories based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology. These insights and recommendations come from our services teams that have spent thousands of hours working with publishers and developers to improve advertising outcomes.

In this post, we focus on tips you can use to improve ad viewability by optimizing your apps and sites for speed and responsiveness.

Here is today's recommendation:



We hope these recommendations will improve your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below. 

In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 3 speedy ways to improve viewability.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran, Product Marketing Manager

Source: Inside AdMob


Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: Best practices for improving ad viewability

Increasing the total number of viewable ad impressions has been shown to improve the performance of ads on sites and apps and increase advertiser satisfaction. To help publishers and app developers increase the likelihood that their ads will be measured as viewable, we're excited to share the viewability spotlight infographic. It contains a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability across four categories based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.

The infographic covers how to:
  • Enable viewability measurement
  • Optimize for speed and responsiveness
  • Lay out ads for optimal viewability
  • Load ads and content for optimal viewability
Publishers and app developers across the globe have been able to seamlessly measure viewability, at no additional charge, with the launch of Google’s Active View technology in DoubleClick for Publishers, DoubleClick Ad Exchange, AdSense and AdMob. The tips in the viewability spotlight infographic can help you go beyond simply understanding viewability rates to optimizing viewability on your site or app so that all of your impressions are viewable.

These insights and recommendations come from our services teams that have spent thousands of hours working with publishers and developers to improve advertising outcomes.

Download your copy of the viewability spotlight infographic now.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran, Product Marketing Manager


Source: Inside AdMob


Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: Best practices for improving ad viewability

Increasing the total number of viewable ad impressions has been shown to improve the performance of ads on sites and apps and increase advertiser satisfaction. To help publishers and app developers increase the likelihood that their ads will be measured as viewable, we're excited to share the viewability spotlight infographic. It contains a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability across four categories based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.

The infographic covers how to:
  • Enable viewability measurement
  • Optimize for speed and responsiveness
  • Lay out ads for optimal viewability
  • Load ads and content for optimal viewability
Publishers and app developers across the globe have been able to seamlessly measure viewability, at no additional charge, with the launch of Google’s Active View technology in DoubleClick for Publishers, DoubleClick Ad Exchange, AdSense and AdMob. The tips in the viewability spotlight infographic can help you go beyond simply understanding viewability rates to optimizing viewability on your site or app so that all of your impressions are viewable.

These insights and recommendations come from our services teams that have spent thousands of hours working with publishers and developers to improve advertising outcomes.

Download your copy of the viewability spotlight infographic now.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran, Product Marketing Manager


Source: Inside AdSense


Getting to know Active View and the world of viewability

We've had a lot of questions recently from AdSense publishers about viewability and the new Active View metrics in AdSense accounts. Active View can really help you improve your AdSense earnings, so let's take a closer look.

What are Active View and viewability?

Active View is Google’s ad viewability measurement solution. It tracks the viewability of ads served by AdSense: that is, the percentage of ads that are considered viewable out of the total number of ads measured. We use the online ad industry standard: a display ad is counted as viewable when at least 50% of the ad is within the viewable space on the user’s screen for one second or more.
So an ad that is (for instance) placed below the first screen on a given page won't be counted as viewable if the viewer never scrolls down. This is why viewability a good way of determining whether your AdSense ads are actually being seen by your website visitors or simply loading without a chance of catching the viewer's eye.

Why is viewability important?

The industry shift towards viewability is good for both publishers and advertisers for many reasons.
  • Benefits for advertisers and the advertising industry
Without viewability metrics, advertisers could be paying for ads that loaded on a page but were never seen. If you're an advertiser paying per click you might not care, but if you're paying by the impression it could be a much bigger deal.

Active View metrics help because they show advertisers what percentage of their ads are actually being seen by users and which publishers provide the highest level of viewability. This helps advertisers make smarter decisions about where they should buy ad impressions. That makes display ads both more measurable and more effective.
  • Benefits for publishers
Viewability metrics also help publishers understand the true performance of the AdSense ads they display. Whether the ad is being paid for by click or by impression, ads that aren't seen by the user can’t have an impact. In the long run, they won’t generate reliable ad revenue.

If publishers notice that the Active View percentage for certain ad units is lower than others, that ad position is probably underperforming and ought to be optimized. Active View can help publishers increase their AdSense earnings as they take corrective action and improve the performance of these ads.

How to improve your ad viewability

Once you become familiar with viewability statistics, there are two changes you can make to improve your results.
  • Change ad sizes
Vertical ad units such as 160x600 and 120x600 tend to have higher Active View percentages. This makes sense: vertical ad units are in view for longer as the user scrolls up or down the page. Other ad sizes with high viewability rates include the 120x240 and 240x400 ad units.
  • Change ad positions
Rethinking the position of your AdSense ad units can also help improve your viewability rates. It's not always just a matter of putting more ads at the top of the page: for example, ads positioned just above the fold tend to have higher viewability rates since they remain within view for longer as the user scrolls down. Experiment with what works best on your site.

Paying close attention to your Active View numbers will help you bring your visitors the targeted ads you want them to see and remove the uncertainty around unviewable ads. In the end, that should mean fewer underperforming ad units and a potentially a new way to achieve better revenues overall.
We think that in the long term viewability will change the way that advertisers allocate their budgets to online display. And if you're a publisher, it's a good idea to start paying attention to these new numbers and make adjustments to your ad sizes, ad units, and ad positions to improve viewability and potentially achieve better results.

To learn more about viewability and Active View, see the AdSense Help Center.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!


Posted by Paul Healy
Publisher Monetization Specialist

Source: Inside AdSense


The Google Display Network ups its commitment to viewability

For years, brand advertisers have been looking for ways to ensure their online ads are seen. This can be difficult — 56% of all display ads and 46% of all video ads aren’t viewable because they’re below the fold, scrolled out of view, or in a background tab. For several years, we’ve been working to help advertisers address this challenge and today we are introducing 3 key improvements: the upgrade of all CPM campaigns to viewable CPM campaigns; new viewable frequency capping; and supplementary reporting metrics built on the viewability standard.

All CPM campaigns are now viewable CPM campaigns 
As we announced in September, we’re furthering our commitment to make viewability the currency of digital advertising by upgrading all CPM campaigns on the GDN to viewable CPM (vCPM) campaigns. We’ve now completed this upgrade, making the Google Display Network (GDN) one of the only media platforms where advertisers don’t pay for an impression unless it’s actually viewable by a user.

Viewable CPM (vCPM) buying was launched in AdWords in 2013 so advertisers could choose to only pay for display and video impressions that meet the MRC defined industry standard for viewability. Fifty percent or more of the ad must appear on screen — for at least 1 second for display ads and 2 seconds for video ads, as measured by Google’s Active View technology. This year, tens of billions of impressions were filtered out before ever being charged to AdWords advertisers because they didn’t meet this standard.

Viewable CPM helps brand advertisers buy efficiently and reach their campaign goals:

Devialet, an audio equipment company based in Paris, wanted to make more consumers aware of its speakers and amplifiers. To broaden its reach, Devialet shifted its campaigns from CPC to vCPM. As a result, Devialet increased its viewable impressions per dollar by 49% and increased its average time spent on site by 50%.

New viewable frequency capping will give advertisers better control
Frequency capping helps you control how many times your ads appear to the same person. When unviewable impressions are counted toward a frequency cap, a user may not see your ad as many times as you intended.

Starting in the next few weeks, frequency capping will only count viewable impressions for display and video campaigns in AdWords. This will help advertisers maintain better control over how often their ads are actually viewable to users. To learn more about setting a frequency cap, visit the Help Center.

New reporting metrics give a better picture of campaign performance
To give advertisers a better picture of how their display and video campaigns are performing, we’ve added supplementary metrics built on the viewability standard, such as:
  • Total impressions that were viewable
  • Percentage of impressions that were viewable
  • Percentage of viewable ads that were clicked
These metrics give advertisers more clarity on which placements and creatives are driving campaign performance when they are viewable to users.

We’ve long advocated for the adoption of viewability as a common currency to help marketers and publishers work together transparently, efficiently, and with accountability. This is another important step along that journey.

Posted by Glenn Wilson, Product Manager, AdWords

Source: Inside AdWords


Understanding How Viewability Relates to Brand Metrics for Video Ads

As a brand trying to reach consumers in today’s increasingly fragmented media landscape, it is critical that you understand the impact of your ads on brand metrics such as awareness and consideration.

Viewability is the starting point, an initial understanding of whether the ad had a chance to be seen. We have talked before about why measuring the viewability of advertising matters.

In December 2014, we shared insights on the state of display ad viewability across the web. As a continuation of that effort, in May we released new insights from our video ad platforms, including YouTube, to start the discussion about the state of video ad viewability.


We wanted to take this research a step further, by analyzing the relationship between viewability and brand metrics.

To do so, we took our Brand Lift solution, which gives you insights into what impact your ads have on the consumer journey - from awareness, to ad recall, to brand interest - and tied the data to viewability metrics from our Active View technology for a set of YouTube TrueView ads. By connecting these two solutions, we were able to draw out some insights about the relationship between viewability and brand metrics.

Sight, Sound and Motion Combined Drive Higher Lift

When it comes to brand metrics, ad recall is a foundation for measuring the impact of your ad. As a brand advertiser, knowing if your ad breaks through with users is a key first step to understanding the overall impact of an ad on a suite of brand metrics. In this analysis, we were able to analyze how being able to hear and see your ad affected a user’s ability to recall your ad.

Our data shows that users exposed to even one aspect of your video ad (audio or video only), exhibit significant lift in ad recall. However, the full immersive experience of sight, sound and motion delivers more ad recall than either audio or video alone. In fact, the impact on ad recall was 23% higher when users were exposed to ads with audio and video together versus ads with just audio alone.

The Longer in View, the Better You Do (on Brand Metrics)

Time in view also plays a large role when it comes to moving the needle on brand awareness and consideration. We recently introduced the ability for Active View users to measure average viewable time - the average time, in seconds, a given ad appeared on screen - in Doubleclick Bid Manager. By connecting these measurements, we can see the relationship between viewable time and brand metrics.

We found that there is a consistent relationship between how long an ad is viewable and increases in brand awareness and consideration. The longer a user views your ad, the higher the lift in these two important brand metrics


What the Results Mean for Your Brand

These results prompt you to think about your brand advertising in a few important ways:
  • Are users viewing your creative for longer periods of time? Brand metrics continue to get higher the longer a user views your ad.
  • Are you buying the right media to have an impact on brand metrics? YouTube’s opt-in TrueView ads are uniquely suited to deliver long-form video content at scale for brand advertisers.
  • Finally, are you thinking beyond viewability to capture effectiveness metrics? You want your ads to move consumers at the moments that matter, and measuring the impact on brand metrics will make for more effective ad spend.
This is just the beginning of understanding what impacts brand metrics for video ads. As brands look to measure the effectiveness of their digital video advertising, a continued understanding of what factors drive brand metrics will be crucial to more effective brand spend.

Read further research on the impact of online video.

To read all of our research on viewability, check out thinkwithgoogle.com/viewability.

To see how viewability is measured, visit our interactive Active View demo.

Sanaz Ahari, Group Product Manager, Brand Measurement