Updated May 20, 10 a.m.
Juice Mobile is offering a 100% viewability guarantee to all buyers that use its platforms to purchase in-app or mobile web ad placements.
In the future, this will be table stakes. Everybody will offer it, so we’re going to make sure everybody knows we offer it.
Neil Sweeney, Juice Mobile
Although the company can’t guarantee that it won’t buy non-viewable ads (since viewability can only be measured after an ad is purchased and delivered) advertisers won’t pay for any impressions that are out-of-view. Clients can select their own preferred independent measurement partner to assess the viewability of the ads they want guaranteed.
Juice founder and CEO Neil Sweeney said mobile is a much more viewability-ready media channel than desktop, putting mobile platform vendors in a much better position to offer the viewability guarantees media buyers are demanding.
Both mobile website publishers and app developers have embraced responsive design tools that only load ads when they’re on a user’s screen, meaning that by default, they only serve ads that fit the industry-standard “opportunity to be seen” definition. That’s led to a significant difference in mobile viewability rates: Sizmek reported last month that standard HTML5 banners on mobile browsers are viewable 79.3% of the time, versus 48.4% on desktop.
Juice’s viewability guarantee will be available across both its Swarm demand-side platform for RTB, and its up-front programmatic direct marketplace, Nectar. Sweeney said that both platforms see nearly 100% viewability already, thanks to the quality of the inventory Juice buys and (in Swarm’s case) the efficiency of its optimization algorithms. That means the company won’t take much of a loss by writing off the small volume of non-viewable impressions it ends up buying.
Juice is the first Canadian company to offer a 100% viewability guarantee, and one of only a handful across North America. Earlier this month, New York-based mobile platform Millennial Media announced that it will offer a 100% viewability guarantee for in-app mobile ads, but Sweeney says Juice’s guarantee is more comprehensive, since it covers both apps and mobile web, and includes display and video.
Juice likely won’t be the only one for long. Sweeney said that in six months’ time, he expects such guarantees will be a “non-conversation,” and that the viewable impression will have replaced the delivered impression as the standard unit of currency for online buying.
“For us, it’s about sticking a flag in the ground, and saying this is where the entire market is going. In the future, this will be table stakes. Everybody will offer it, so we’re going to make sure everybody knows we offer it,” he said.
Although viewability measurement has been gaining traction for several years, publishers have struggled to adapt their websites and pricing models to emphasize viewable ads. In the U.S., where calls for accountability about non-viewable ad inventory have been much louder, sellers and platform vendors have argued that 100% viewability is an unrealistic standard, and that it’s too early to be selling only viewable ads.
Sweeney doesn’t buy it. “What do you mean it’s too early? You’re selling inventory to individuals at a price, based on a certain number of impressions, and you’re not giving them that,” he said. “When you deliver your buy to 80%, the person doesn’t pay you 100%. They pay you 80% because you didn’t deliver those impressions.
“You can stick your head in the sand and pretend it’s not going to change, but it is,” he said. “I can guarantee you that.”
Update: This story initially claimed Integral Ad Science would back Juice Mobile’s guarantee. This was based on inaccurate information provided by a source. Although Juice will provide its guarantee based on assessments of campaign viewability by independent providers including IAS, IAS does not work directly with Juice.
