Over 50% Of Online Display Ads Go Unseen By Consumers

Digital
AUK Advertising

A recent study from the search engine giant Google has found that 56.1% of all online display ad impressions go unseen by internet users, The Drum reports. The ad-viewability study is the first global study into the area, as Google aims to “take a lead” in becoming experts in understanding viewability-based trading.

The report focusses on impressions gathered from a variety of publishers from around the world and of varying sizes. Google gathered the information from its Google Display Network (GDN), DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick ad Exchange networks.

Viewability – whether an ad is actually in-view to users on a website – is a particularly hot topic as advertisers are beginning to question whether their investment in such ads are being seen and therefore paying off. Current IAB standards dictate that for an ad to be classed as in-view, 50% of the pixels must be present in the viewable portion of an internet browser for a minimum of one second. If it is a video ad, this extends to two seconds.

With the results showing that over 50% of ads go unseen, advertisers are understandably concerned. Kelloggs teamed with ComScore to conduct their own research on their viewability-based campaigns and experienced a 75% increase in sales by increasing viewability rates by 40%. Alex Tait, the digital director for EMEA at Kelloggs, stated that: “For 56% of impressions in the study not to be seen shows why it is an issue brand advertisers in particular need to be aware of and be optimising against.”

Questions over ad visibility were raised in 2012 when an ISBA member – an advertiser trade body – requested a move from ‘served’ to ‘viewable’ ad impressions, according to the article.