High Proportion of Display Ads Not Seen by Intended Audience
Digital/Online
March 2012 -- Online content rating firm AdSafe Media, Inc. conducted a review of users' engagement with display ads by analyzing the 1.5 billion ad impressions per day that come through their systems. AdSafe technology is able to verify whether ads are in view to its designated user, how long ads are in view, and whether ads are in view upon page load and/or page close.
Ad Viewabilty and Risky Content
For a variety of reasons, online ads are often not viewed by their intended user. 'Above-the-fold' ads may never be in view to a user due to variations in browser sizes, page load times, tabs, and more. Also, user behavior indicates that at times, ads are viewed for a longer period of time as a user scrolls to engage with ‘below-the-fold’ page content.
In addition, high-risk inventory is problematic. These are ad impressions with a low degree of brand safety due to displaying next to or near offensive or inappropriate content, such as offensive language, adult content, or drug and alcohol related ads.
Key findings from AdSafe's 2011 Semiannual Review:
- The amount of time an ad is in view is a key measure of user engagement. Adsafe finds nearly 40% of all display ads -- above and below-the fold -- were either not in-view at all to their intended user or in-view for less than half a second, the standard time accepted for an ad view according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
- Religion and spirituality sites lead with an in-view time of five seconds followed by sport sites (4+ seconds) and news sites (3 seconds).
- The overall proportion of risky-to-brand-safety content increased 25% quarter-over-quarter in Q4 to represent 7.5% of all impressions, with the majority of those deemed moderate risk (4.8% of total impressions).
- Ads that should be received in the U.S. but are incorrectly geo-targeted result in these ads being displayed to users in other countries. The U.K. received the largest share of America’s non-geo-compliant impressions, with 22.8%, while Canada came in second, receiving 17.4% of improperly geo-targeted ads.
About: To obtain its results, AdSafe analyzed the 1. 5 billion impressions per day that came through its systems.
Sources: AdSafe, 2011 AdSafe Semiannual Review, accessed March 19, 2012, and Marketing Charts, High Proportion of Display Ads Not In-View to Intended User, March 2, 2012.
