The Viewability Myth-Buster For Advertisers

For brands and agencies running ads across video or display, viewability presents a challenge. How can they strike the right balance between viewability and other advertising goals? While viewability offers confidence that ads have the opportunity to be seen, it’s not an end goal; it’s one of several factors up for consideration. Let’s take a look at some of the myths that have developed around it.

1. Viewability Equals Engagement
If the viewer can see an ad, is the ad is successful? Not necessarily. Viewability is a start, but it doesn’t indicate how engaged your audience is. First, establish an engagement metric agnostic of viewability. Then measure both side by side to understand how viewability affects engagement. Only then can you use viewability as a more effective proxy. What happened when viewability was high? Did ad recall increase?

2. Viewability Improves ROI
Viewability actually decreases ROI, unless you recalculate it based on vCPM, since the non-viewable impressions you undoubtedly serve will drag down your ROI. And since viewability doesn’t equal engagement, measuring the ROI simply based on in-view rates is meaningless. ROI has to be based on something that matters—engagement, brand lift, increased sales, etc.

3. Viewability Solves All Advertising Challenges
Just because viewability is measurable doesn’t mean that measuring it is always meaningful. And again, viewability can’t give you answers about targeting or ROI. Look at viewability as another factor to consider in setting campaign goals. And be mindful of context, so your assessment of viewability metrics isn’t misinterpreted or overstated.

For more on viewability challenges, see our ebook, “Bringing Viewability into Focus.”

About Amobee

Founded in 2005, Amobee is an advertising platform that understands how people consume content. Our goal is to optimize outcomes for advertisers and media companies, while providing a better consumer experience. Through our platform, we help customers further their audience development, optimize their cross channel performance across all TV, connected TV, and digital media, and drive new customer growth through detailed analytics and reporting. Amobee is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tremor International, a collection of brands built to unite creativity, data and technology across the open internet.

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