Video buying platform TubeMogul has rolled out its viewability measurement solution in Canada and other markets, allowing advertisers to measure how often consumers have an opportunity to see their pre-roll and video banner ads.
“Since the dawn of advertising, a segment of consumers have ignored ads,” CEO and co-founder Brett Wilson said in a release. “For the first time, we can track exactly where consumers are tuning out, and our software gives marketers a way to do something about it.”
Viewability is at the forefront of programmatic display buying, but a standard definition for video viewability has not been established by industry associations. Video performance is usually measured by completion rate – how often an ad plays to the end – but completions can be misleading since ads can play all the way through even when they’re not on-screen (for instance when the viewer switches to another window or tab, or when the ad auto-plays off-screen).
“Since TV is not yet able to measure viewability (at least in Canada), there is usually a knee-jerk reaction by [advertising] clients when the true cost of reaching their audience is factored in,” said Havas Media Canada VP Azadeh Mahinpou Dindayal in TubeMogul’s release. “Still, the benefits to measuring this KPI outweigh the cons; traditional measures like frequency or audience composition mean nothing if the ad was never seen.”
TubeMogul’s new measurement solution is based on Open Video View (OpenVV), an open source framework developed by a consortium of 20 video advertising tech companies. OpenVV is intended to give any advertiser or demand side platform access to campaign viewability data across exchanges and networks. However, TubeMogul’s Canadian director Grant Le Riche says trading platforms are still just beginning to integrate the data, and many existing solutions require 24 hours or more for data delivery.
“[TubeMogul’s solution] is a differentiator in the sense that… it’s actionable,” he said. “If brands are seeing, in real-time, that a certain site is under performing, or the amount of people muting the video is extremely high, they can turn that site off. They can optimize towards who is actually seeing and hearing their ads.”
Canadian video ads
According to the company’s research, Canadian video ads suffer from particularly low viewability. On average, a remnant video placement is viewable for the first five seconds 39.9% of the time, while a premium, direct-purchased placement is viewable 59.7% of the time.
The ratio of unviewable ads is potentially much higher, since as many as two-thirds of all video ads are not measurable, and not included in TubeMogul’s averages. Most ads that aren’t measurable have been served in the iFrames format, which can be used to deliberately block advertiser tracking.
The high ratio of unmeasurable ads calls into question the effectiveness of OpenVV in the first place. Le Riche says unmeasurability should be a red flag for careful buyers, and that the platform can at least warn buyers when they are getting unmeasurable inventory.
Another warning sign is the size of the ad – smaller video players have proportionally lower viewability, and the smallest players (300×250 pixels) are most likely to be fraudulent or suspicious.
“This whole industry has been built on smoke and mirrors,” he said. “We believe that what’s going to bring more money to online video is what TV provides — full transparency, accountability, and verifiable data.”
By the numbers
Data provided by TubeMogul
Average viewability of measurable video ads in Canada:
• Remnant inventory: 39.9%
• Premium inventory: 59.7%
Reasons for non-viewability of measurable ads:
• Window inactive (user in different tab or window): 70.3%
• Video out of frame (user scrolled away, or never scrolled far enough): 18.2%
• Audio muted: 11.5%
Viewability by player size:
• 300-500 pixels: 28.3%
• 500-1000 pixels: 43.1%
• 1000+ pixels: 50.5%
