Maximize Revenue Opportunities by Optimizing for Viewability

Viewability is arguably becoming the most important KPI in video advertising. With video being one of the most engaging and popular forms of content, brands have followed suit adopting a video-centric advertising approach. As buyers invest more in their digital video strategy, ensuring campaigns are seen by readers is a key metric used to evaluate success. But the importance of viewability doesn’t stop with buyers, both readers and publishers benefit from high viewability as well with better ad viewing experiences and increased revenue from demand. With an industry-wide focus on viewability, here’s what publishers need to know.

What is viewability + why does it matter?

Viewability measures whether an advertisement was in-view when it played. As defined by the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) & MRC (Media Rating Council), a viewable video impression is when at least 50% of the ad’s pixels are visible on-screen for at least 2 consecutive seconds. Simply put, in order for a user to engage with a brand’s advertisement they have to be able to see it. 

Viewability was first introduced in 2007 by Alenty (since acquired by Xandr) when they were first able to measure ad-viewability. Today, high viewability has become table stakes for the majority of marketers because an advertisement that is played out of view — either below the fold, behind a pop-up, etc. — has a negative ROI. While advertisers look at a variety of performance metrics to measure campaign success — i.e. click-through rate, cost per click, conversion rate, etc. — making sure the ad is actually seen by a user is the first step in engaging their audience. 

Historically, performance guarantees have been reserved for Private Marketplace (PMP) deals, however, buyers are now beginning to expect baseline viewability performance on the open marketplace as well. As marketers become increasingly focused on viewability, publishers that look to maximize the viewability of their placements will begin to reap the benefits. 

What does this mean for publishers?

Marketers are putting more spend behind deals they know will get in front of users. Publishers with high viewability have the opportunity to: 

• Capture more spend from high-quality demand, which typically bids with a minimum viewability threshold, including both open market and PMP deals.
• Drive revenue with more monetization opportunities. According to Google’s Video Viewability Guide, “increasing the viewability of your video ads from 50% to 90% can result in more than 80% revenue uplift.”

What are some challenges we’re seeing?

With viewability becoming a focal point for marketers, publishers are facing new challenges.  

• Not all buyers are on the same page today. As such, buyer’s viewability expectations can fluctuate and differ on a case-by-case basis.
• Industry power players like The Trade Desk have begun enforcing minimum viewability thresholds, meaning placements netting viewability percentages below the minimum could be in jeopardy of seeing revenue hits.
• Buyers and vendors use disparate tech solutions to measure viewability, which can cause discrepancies as it relates to the actual measurement of viewability.

How can you increase player viewability?

There are a few simple ways to increase the viewability of your video player. We recommend running A/B tests to try out a few suggestions and see which best fits into your video strategy.   

• Move the video player higher on the page to capture readers' attention – the average user scroll depth is roughly 34% of an article. – SRC
• Increase the video player size, giving it a greater chance of being seen & staying in-view.
  • Based on a Google report, a 2560 x 1440px video player has a 95% viewability rate on average whereas a 854 x 480px player size has a 88% viewability rate.
• Create a page exclusively for video where users can consume publisher video content.
• Add a floating or sticky player option, ensuring the player is always in view.
  • A Connatix publisher partner added a dynamic floating player to high-traffic sections that loads in replacement of the embedded player when a browser’s left rail is larger than 300 pixels. The floating player achieved 90% viewability and increased the average page CPM by 167%. 

Note: A/B tests won't generate results overnight. We recommend running them for at least 2 weeks to allow the algorithms to adapt.

For current Connatix partners, reach out to your account manager for customized insights on how to increase your player viewability, or if you’re new here, reach out to get started!