Digital Media News

What metrics are you currently using to measure the efficacy of your display ads and rich media investments? Clicks, dwell time, actions, or a combination of them all? Can the “impressions” metric tell you if an ad is even seen in the first place?

If you don’t know, it’s time you got up to speed. Lets discuss ad viewability and what it is all about.

You can measure all the current display ad metrics you want and pay money based on them, but you may well be paying for ads that don’t ever get seen. This is because you’re paying for served impressions, rather than guaranteed viewed impressions.

Viewable Impression Measurement Guidelines

Debates around the issue of ad viewability have been raging in the marketing industry for several years now, culminating in the release last year of the Media Rating Council (MRC) and Internet Advertising Bureau’s (IAB), ‘Viewable Impression Measurement Guidelines.

Do you knowexactlyhow many people are viewing your online ads? No? Well, it’s sad to say that it’s probably a lot fewer people than you think. In fact, a study by Google found that more than half (56.1%) of online display ad impressions are not seen by consumers. This means that you may have effectively been throwing your digital ad money away.

Impressions versus viewability

Advertisers have traditionally used impressions as a metric to measure ad performance. Yet many of these impressions result from page visits in which the visitor never actually sees the ads, either because they’re displayed too low, or worse — the impression is down to a bot.

The way around this is to embrace ad viewability - which looks at whether an ad is actually in view to readers on publishers’ websites.Advertisers that embrace ad viewability over impressions will learn which placements are worth the investment.

Above-the-fold (ATF) impressions, for example, do not promise ad viewability. In fact, less than half of ATF impressions are actually viewable, due to the fact that: Many visitors start scrolling down as soon as they visit a page and see top ads for less than a second, and ad vendors self-categorize what constitutes “above” and “below” the fold, which can persuade clients into over-paying for a less-than-suitable placement.

It's impossible to ignore the fact that the world is constantly shifting and growing faster than ever before. We have more digital advancements today than we could have imagined only a couple of decades ago and technology is a vital part of staying afloat within just about any competitive industry.

Every day, more people consume larger amounts of digital content - whether it's on their mobile phones, desktop computers, laptops at work, or tablets. Any company that hasn't adjusted its advertising strategy to include a comprehensive online advertising campaign needs to start making changes - fast.

Studies have shown that consumers today use social media and mobile Internet research to conduct price comparisons and discover information about products before they make final purchasing decisions. With the right online advertising, you can build customer relations and develop your prospects through low-cost, regular, and easy communication. The online world is the future of advertising, and digital media may soon replace traditional concepts altogether, however, just like any advertising effort - your campaign is bound to fail unless you know which mistakes to avoid. Following are the top five reasons that cause online advertising campaigns to stumble.

Establishing an identity and presence online is one of the most important things that any business can do today. While there are many different forms of marketing available, one of the more popular options comes in the form of media buying. 

A sub-section of advertising management, media buying takes place when a company or individual responsible for a company's advertisement strategies purchases real estate on a site. To become a truly amazing media buyer, you need to master the art of negotiating placement and price to ensure that you're getting the best possible value for your money. This will enhance your chances for ultimate ad viewability and user interaction.

As the online advertising industry continues to popularize a programmatic media buying format with real-time bidding abilities that work in tandem with automated advertising optimization our jobs seem to be getting busier and more overwhelming. Yes, technology is getting faster and smarter but the amount of expected work output and expert knowledge required is increasing in parallel. Or so that's how a person can easily start to feel if they don't read our online media buying recommendations we are sharing below. Kidding.

We deal with thousands of online advertising campaigns and have built a proprietary advertising platform around the process of buying media online. As a result, we are constantly refining the process, observing issues, and working to make the entire online advertising process easier, more effective, and successful.

Retargeting has become the tactic of choice for the modern marketer - and for good reason. Also commonly referred to as behavioral retargeting or remarketing the term is defined as a type of online advertising where certain products or services are targeted to specific users based on their previous interactions with a brand.

How Does Retargeting Work?

When a user visits a particular online retailer’s website (for example) and browses for a product, a record of that interaction is stored on their computer in the form of a cookie. A programmatic retargeting campaign can then access that cookie the next time a user visits a site with an appropriate ad buy; view the record of the product the user was looking at and serve up ads that are designed to showcase that product in greater detail.

Because retargeting only focuses on previously engaged website visitors, it tends to be more effective than many other forms of online advertising.