In the last few months since the topic of viewable ads rose to the forefront a number of publishers have jumped on board to say they’ll only sell viewable ads. ESPN was probably the biggest publisher to say they’ll test the model and see what happens. I wonder what happened?
The viewable ad topic is not going away, but it has simmered down a bit. It surprises me that advertisers haven’t taken hold and started to demand it as part of their packages. If I were still a buyer, it would be top of mind. Back in 2000 I tried to spearhead an initiative to price all media on a cost per unique rather than impression model and it worked for about 6 months, but to maintain that model was too difficult in the face of the marketplace. That was a topic I created and I was only one man in a modestly-sized agency. This is a topic that research created, the industry has latched onto and media buyers would be smart to leverage for their own benefit. That means momentum.
From a publisher perspective, viewable ads means more difficulty in yield management. Yield management systems will have to take into account the viewability of the ad and price accordingly, meaning a publisher whose ads are not above the fold will take a hit and the challenge lies in ensuring that premium ads are priced high enough to make up the difference. It also means ensuring your ad-serving solution is literally “up to speed” and you aren’t running into issues with ad delivery. If the ad isn’t guaranteed to be seen, then you don’t get paid for it!
On the advertiser side of the equation this could become the tipping point for determining the effectiveness of your campaign. If we guarantee the ads are viewable, then it rests on the creative to break through clutter and create actions from the consumer. If the creative gets better, and it has to, then online advertising could vault itself into the lead position in terms of effectiveness. The targeting is here, the ability to reduce waste is here, and with the viewability factor the guaranteed exposure is there. That just leaves the art of the creative to drive the consumer to react!
If that’s the case, what are we waiting for? This year’s upfront television season was considered something of a correction vs. the previous season, with average CPMs rising only in the single digit percentages. That opens the window a little wider for dollars to continue shifting towards digital and the perception of online to grow to become that of a stronger branding medium. For those of us who’ve been deep in the waters of online for a long time, we know that branding can be done online but for the newer entrants this is still something to be proved. Viewability sets the stage on a level playing field and makes this very achievable.
So if I were a publisher, here’s what I would do. I would approach my top 25% of advertisers and offer them a viewable ads package. Something that guarantees the viewability of their ads in return for a minimum spend guarantee. This allows you to ensure they get the right kinds of inventory in return for some measure of guaranteed revenue. This softens the potential blow of the inventory correction that can be associated with viewable ads, and it also incentivizes your second tier of advertisers to step up to the plate and guarantee to spend more in return for this commitment. Over time your yield management systems will catch up to the viewability issue, but during that time you should hopefully see an increase in performance that would subsequently justify the premium rates you would like to charge for your inventory. If you integrate data and targeting even more to ensure the accuracy of your audience, your CPMs will likely increase enough to more than pay for the correction on inventory. This also goes hand in hand with making sure your ads are in the best possible locations within content.
Even though the issue of viewable ads has fell off the front page of the trades, it doesn’t mean it’s going away. It simply means that now is the time to determine the changes you need to make strategically and see how they affect your business.
What are your thoughts on the issue?
I think you're spot on from an advertiser perspective...for digital it means delivering on the accountability promise, being able to accurately gauge metrics on true uniques and optimize creative, placement, format and context to fine tune for actionable results...it requires a bit of reserch to validate who is seeing what, some guts to admit to your clients/brand teams/exec floor that a large % of impressions have gone unseen and a recalibration to what will most likely be higher (but impactful) CPMs...great post Cory...
Should we talk now about how many of those uniques may be coming from another country ; )
Posted by: Wokosin | July 20, 2012 at 10:02 AM