Olive Media has partnered with leading digital analytics company Moat to deliver engagement metrics that go deeper than impressions and click-throughs.
The integration means Olive clients will be able to assess viewability, in-view time, ad interactions, hovers and other detailed engagement metrics across Olive’s Elite+ premium publisher partners, including TheStar.com, NYTimes.com and LaPresse.ca. Clients will be able to use the service without paying additional fees to an outside measurement provider.
Shannan LaMorre, the vice-president who leads Olive’s Elite+ premium offering, said the company is adopting Moat’s metrics in part because it wants advertisers to move away from using what it considers more limited stats such as CTR on brand campaigns.
She said Elite+ campaigns often involve high-impact rich media ad units, like rising star banners and Olive’s own custom-designed expandable units. Those ads offer opportunities for interaction that don’t necessarily result in a click-through to the advertiser’s site – viewers can watch media, view a product library or content thumbnails all without leaving the ad environment.
Moat’s engagement metrics expand on these types of ad interactions, LaMorre said. “As you engage with the unit, it allows us to measure how much time you’re spending within each unit in the ad, whether you’re playing the video, etc,” she said.
Another big focus will be Moat’s viewability metrics. LaMorre said the measurement provider has gained a reputation for having some of the lowest rates of un-measurable ads in the industry.
But Olive doesn’t plan to sell based on guaranteed viewable impressions. Not yet, anyway. For one thing, it’s a decision that’s up to the publishers they work with — if the New York Times doesn’t want to sell that way, Olive can’t either.
But the way LaMorre sees it, there’s also a deeper issue. In these early days, viewability guarantees can create the wrong incentives for publishers. For example, it encourages more vertical ad units, because they’re more likely to be seen while the user’s scrolling.
“If I wanted to game the system, I’d be creating some more of the old 160 by 600 skyscraper units, which isn’t a great canvas for an advertiser,” she said. “I get what the advertisers are asking and I absolutely understand, but I’m pretty convinced they don’t want to pay more for that kind of inventory.”
Just as with CTRs, it’s better to judge the value of an ad based on a range of engagement metrics rather than any one alone.
