Unanswered Q&A from Viewable Impressions Webinar

I recently participated in a lively Webinar panel with Mike Leo and Manu Warikoo of Operative, and Julian Zilberbrand of SMG. Here are some great questions that came in, and my answers.

1.      Mike Renfro Sr Dir Ad Sales Seeking Alpha: have many publishers have actually moved to 100% "In-View"?

There are multiple comScore 100 publishers offering guaranteed InView. Ad servers and platforms are also getting into the mix, with Pubmatic offering publishers InView capability and Zedo providing buyers with its InView Slider controls.

2.      Jonathan Fibbon Owner Armslist: Is there a way to become an early adopter of this viewable standard and take advantage of my site's "premium inventory" ?

Absolutely. The best way to start is to conduct a comScore Digital Analytix (DAx) Monetization diagnostic on your inventory, and understand which placements are the best candidates for removal, and which are the most likely to sustain a move from “remnant” to “premium” status vis a vis viewability. Then, use DAx Monetization to optimize inventory on an ongoing basis.

3.      Jim Schrand Dir of Data Strategy: If it's pay for performance, then it would seem that viewability is somewhat irrelevant.  Viewability is not a performance metric.

On the contrary, one of the biggest challenges we see is the inappropriate attribution of conversions and other performance indicators to sites or placements that are unviewable. Get rid of unviewable impressions, and performance attribution becomes exponentially more accurate, ensuring proper allocation of performance dollars to publishers who invest in content and placement.

4.      Sara La, Sr Ad Coordinator HC Pro: Can you talk about auditing procedures? When advertisers start asking whether a publisher is compliant with Viewable Impressions, how will a publisher know they are compliant other than being honest?

Advertisers and publishers can use validation services such as comScore vCE and DAx Monetization (respectively) to create trusted third party data which can be used to optimize campaigns to InView as appropriate.

5.      Celia Wu Sr Dir Sales NBC: We launched "ServeView" on our site about two years ago, where an impression is only counted when it appears in the users' browsers window.  A great example of a publisher leveraging its tech team; and some industry PR wins.  However, it hasn't equated to actual lift in eCPM.  The only place where we have actually seen eCPM lift is in fact with performance advertisers.  Question:  how does a publisher use technology like ServeView to gain a higher premium on inventory, versus just satisfying "in view" standards?  Is the click still the best measurement?

The performance ad eCPM lift is not surprising – we would expect this given the impact of InView on efficiency and accuracy of attribution. Regarding using ServeView to increase premiums, have you tried selling guaranteed viewable impressions packages? The click correlates poorly to performance lift as opposed to InView and Engagement metrics…

6.      Kari Bretschger Presz and CEO IMW Communications: Why would there be a market for a non-viewable ad? It would be a tough sell...Why would publishers offer it?

Great question! It’s very hard to come up with a single good reason for anyone to buy or sell an unviewable ad. There are a lot of bad reasons, however, which is the challenge the industry needs to step up and solve.