The number of ads that reach advertisers’ intended audiences on mobile (44%) is nearly the same as the number that find the mark on desktop (47%), according to Nielsen‘s new Canadian campaign performance data — its first such report since launching its cross-screen version of Digital Ad Ratings here in February.
Randall Beard, president of expanded verticals at Nielsen, said the finding was unexpected and encouraging, given that Canadian marketers have only recently gained access to panel-based cross-device measurement for advertising (Nielsen is so far the only provider to offer it). In general, he said, lack of measurement has been a big factor holding advertisers back in new channels, but the data show that hasn’t been the case in mobile.
On the other hand, the overall in-target rates still aren’t where most marketers would like to see them. Looking at all campaigns measured by Digital Ad Ratings since it was introduced in Canada, Nielsen found that campaigns only hit their target 56% of the time within the broad 25-54 age category, while the 18-49 bracket had an on-target rate of 69%. Males were slightly more easy to reach than females, by 8% in the 25-54 category and 10% in the 18-49 category.
“Advertisers and agencies have a big opportunity to improve their overall ad performance by doing a better job of ensuring that their ads are viewable and delivered to the right audience,” Beard said.
Canadian campaigns didn’t score very well on viewability, either. According to Nielsen’s numbers, only 34% of the ads served on the average Canadian campaign were in-view. That’s much lower than ComScore’s Canadian average viewability estimate of 47%, which was already quite low.
Some campaigns performed a lot better than others. Another big surprise from the report was that, in terms of on-target reach and viewability, premium direct buys were on par with programmatic, and both were considerably more likely than average to be viewable and find their target. Approximately three quarters of premium ads bought from publishers (79%) and real-time ads bought programmatically (74%) reached their target audience when a broad target was set (defined as a 30-year age gap, e.g. 18-49 or 25-54). Viewability scores were also higher than the overall average, at 40% for premium direct and 37% for programmatic.
Beard described several factors contributing to better performance in both channels. Premium advertisers, he said, are more likely than mid-tier or longtail publishers to have detailed audience data and technology to track and optimize performance on their sites. In programmatic, advertisers are more likely to be taking advantage of careful in-flight optimization, screening out sites that are performing poorly and diverting spend to those performing well.
With viewability, he said higher scores tend to come from working with publishers that have better technology to identify and optimize placements on their sites. “There is a lot of variation in the campaigns, and it’s really driven by the selection of publishers,” he said. “There are publishers that are north of 70% to 80% on audience delivery and viewability.”
In both premium and programmatic, advertisers are beginning to seek audience guarantees from publishers and vendors. This typically means they pay a discounted rate on ads that end up outside the target audience, or they don’t pay for those impressions at all. Such guarantees are standard in TV media planning, but have only made the jump to digital media in the past year or so, as publishers struggle to prove their value for big-name branding campaigns.
Beard said guarantees give partners a strong incentive to make sure their clients campaigns are performing, since they’re now the ones losing money on poor performing impressions. Growing demand for audience guarantees from agencies and advertisers have contributed to gradually improving overall on-target rates in the U.S., he said. “Overall on-target audience delivery is getting better over time,” he said. “With visibility and transparency comes improvement.”
