The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released its State of Viewability Transaction 2015, stating that 100 percent viewability is not reachable yet. “It’s time to set the record straight about what is technically and commercially feasible, in order to get ourselves on an effective road to 100 percent viewability and greater accountability for digital media,” IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg said. “The MRC said it best – 100 percent is currently unreasonable. Why? Because different ad units, browsers, ad placements, vendors and measurement methodologies yield wildly different viewability numbers.” The IAB suggested seven principals to use in 2015 in order for marketers, agencies and publishers to work toward the solution:
1. Billing should be based on Served Impressions (measured and non-measured) during a campaign
2. Given the limitations of current technology, Measured Impressions should be at 70 percent viewability.
3. If a campaign does not achieve the 70% viewability, publishers can “make good” with additional Viewable Impressions until the threshold is met.
4. All “make-goods” should be in the form of additional Viewable Impressions, not cash, and should be delivered in a reasonable time frame. Make-good impressions should be both Viewable and generally consistent with inventory that was purchased in the original campaign.
5. For large format ads (242,500+ pixels), a Viewable Impression is counted if 30% of the pixels of the ad are viewable for a minimum of one continuous second.
6. All transactions between buyers and sellers should use MRC accredited vendors only.
7. A buyer and a seller should agree on a single measurement vendor ahead of time, to make sure all stakeholders avoid costly, labor-intensive, error-prone manual processes of reconciling different sets of viewability numbers.