Here’s How To Measure Mobile Ad Viewability

The Media Rating Council (MRC) just issued its interim guidance for the digital marketing and advertising industry on how to proceed with measuring and transacting around mobile viewability. This appl...
Here’s How To Measure Mobile Ad Viewability
Written by Chris Crum
  • The Media Rating Council (MRC) just issued its interim guidance for the digital marketing and advertising industry on how to proceed with measuring and transacting around mobile viewability. This applies to the “Opportunity to See” an ad in a mobile web browser or a mobile app.

    As you may know, the MRC works with other industry organizations (ANA, IAB and 4As) under the Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative. Its goal is to “facilitate industry discussion and conduct additional, necessary research to create permanent guidelines that account for the specific nuances of mobile web environments.”

    “In guidance issued in 2014, the MRC noted the need for further study to determine if existing Viewable Impression standards could apply to mobile,” an MRC spokesperson tells WebProNews. “Mobile presents technical complications as well as inherently different use cases because of how individuals interact with their devices.”

    READ: A Clearer Look At Mobile Ad Viewability

    For the most part, the new mobile guidance reflects the existing desktop guidance with iewable impression measurement of ads following the model: “50% of pixels in the viewable space of the browser for a minimum of one second for display and two seconds for video ads.”

    The mobile guidance also has a new metric for “Loaded Ad,” which “recognizes that measurement of both pixels in view and time in view may be particularly challenging in mobile at present.”

    “A Loaded Ad is a measure, explicitly designed as an interim metric specific for mobile in application measurement until such time that the state of that measurement fully matures, that provides users with some assurance that the ad did load on the screen, although it does not meet the requirements for qualifying as a viewable impression,” the MRC explains.

    So far, nobody has been accredited as yet by the MRC for mobile viewable impression measurement. It says the new guidance should be considered as a path for organizations that wish to become accredited to do so.

    “After the issuance of the desktop and video viewability guidelines last year, it became clear that technical characteristics of the mobile ad serving environment require the development of new or enhanced methods for determining the viewability of mobile-delivered ads,” said MRC CEO and Executive Director George Ivie. “Furthermore, the ways in which users interact with content and ads in mobile environments are inherently different from those observed in the desktop environment, possibly creating differences in where the moment of ‘opportunity-to-see’ occurs. As such, we will need to conduct extensive study, testing, and industry discussion to develop more permanent guidance. In the meantime, we have issued a set of interim approaches to mobile viewable impression measurement and reporting to allow the industry to transact in as seamless a manner as possible.”

    READ: Ad Viewability Contention Rages On

    The MRC notes that all previous guidance is superseded by the new guidance, which will remain in place until it issues a standard by the end of the year.

    Image via 3MS

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