Google Gives Insight Into Online Advert Viewability

Google recently released its first global report on advert viewability. Viewability tracks the number of impressions made by users that are actually seen. That ad in your footer or midway through the page isn’t as viewable as an advert near the top of the content, for example.

Advert viewability is a key metric for digital marketing teams and companies that are looking to expand their online presence. While pay-per-click is the main measure used by today’s digital marketing teams, viewable impressions are key to building brand awareness.

The Media Rating Council defines a viewable impression, as when 50% of an advert’s pixels are in view for at least one second.

The headline figure from Google’s infographic is that 56.1% of advert impressions are never viewed. While this figure may raise eyebrows, it is important to remember that few digital advertising teams use cost-per-impression campaigns today.

Google also confirmed that the page position has a significant impact on the viewability of an advert. The position of the pages with the highest proportion of views (on average) is just above the fold – in digital marketing, ‘above the fold’ means the portion of the webpage that can be viewed before having to scroll. Above the fold digital ads have 68% viewability, compared with 40% below the fold. The figures also confirmed that vertical ads have the highest viewability rates, as they tend to remain on the page for longer as the user navigates it. Attention-grabbing content has higher viewability rates. Google found that ads about online communities, games, arts and entertainment and jobs and education had the highest viewability rates.