Viewability has never been more important to ad buyers and publishers. While this metric has been crucial for desktop inventory, standards are only just emerging related to mobile viewability. But new tools are available to ensure viewable in-app inventory can be accurately measured and scaled.
The concept of viewability is simple. Advertisers need assurances that their ads have the opportunity to actually be seen by consumers. It’s a table-stakes metric for the marketer. Publishers, in turn, need to be able to prove the veracity of their inventory.
With continuing advertiser concerns about brand safety and ad quality, viewability will only grow in significance. Last March, per Credit Suisse, the number of marketers who said they care about viewability was 63 percent higher than it had been just three months earlier. A study released in November by IPG Mediabrands’ Magna found that overall campaign performance—specifically the ability for direct-response marketing to drive conversions—was tied directly to ad viewability.
The challenge for mobile
With digital audiences increasingly operating across platforms and screens, advertising performance has to follow them with consistent measurement and verification. While a unified viewability standard would be beneficial to mobile advertisers and publishers, there have been significant challenges in achieving this.
In particular, the methods used to verify viewable impressions on desktop do not necessarily work on mobile. Plus, consumers use mobile differently than they do desktop—smaller screens require more scrolling, which can affect the viewability of ads.
There’s also the question of measurement. Because it can be difficult to measure in-app viewability—and recent studies show that mobile users spend the majority of their time in apps—the figures publishers share may not be consistent or accurate. That is why advertisers and publishers are increasingly turning to independent verification companies such as Integral Ad Science (IAS) and Moat. The challenge, however, is that in-app advertising often requires publishers to integrate multiple SDKs to match advertiser expectations, and this also can impact performance.
In addition, because viewability is a new buy-side requirement, it is uncharted territory for many app publishers. Some have been reluctant to embrace this measurement, concerned about how it will impact the value of their inventory. They want to be sure the budgets are there, but solving in-app viewability may very well be the key to unlocking those ad dollars.
Solving in-app viewability
To address these challenges, mobile monetization platform MoPub (a Twitter company) recently released a new version of its SDK with viewability support from both IAS and Moat. This release enables mobile app publishers to offer buyers in-app inventory at scale that is measurable for viewability.
Why two measurement partners? Marketers, and the demand-side platforms that support them, often have a measurement provider of choice. By aligning with two of the leading independent providers, the MoPub SDK enables both by default, ensuring that publishers can work with a single solution and buyers can use the provider they need.
MoPub sees this release as a milestone in helping digital marketers realize the potential of in-app mobile advertising. As mobile app publishers adopt the measurement-enabled SDK, buyers will get access to mobile inventory that’s newly measurable as well as consistency in viewability measurement across devices — giving them a reason to increase their in-app spend.
App publishers, meanwhile, will get access to those cross-device dollars. “Viewability has become critical for our monetization strategy,” notes Taylor Coulis, director of programmatic at sports app theScore. “It’s helping us deliver the right value and meet the goals of our advertisers, as well as drive an increase in revenue.”
Adding consistency and scalability to independently-verified mobile measurement addresses what has long been a key concern for both the buy- and sell-sides. The progress that the digital industry made this year should signal the massive opportunity in mobile that marketers can begin to realize in 2018.
