tubemogul viewability whitepaper us jan2014

IntroductIon

What Is VIeWabIlIty?

openVV.org

state of VIeWabIlIty

state of confusIon

sIx thIngs to look for In a VIeWabIlIty solutIon

standard In flux

VIEWABILIT YSince the dawn of adver tising, consumers have ignored ads. Technology finally caught up. For the first time, marketers can know whether a video ad actually gets watched — and do something about it.

VIDEO

Developed by TubeMogul with the ANA-4A’s-IAB Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) principles in mind, the technology tracks:

The porTion of a video ad in view and how long iT is in view;

wheTher a window is acTive;

player size; and

wheTher a video is muTed.

The system has been successfully tested across hundreds of millions of video ad impressions and thousands of publisher sites. Data from the technology is shared with the Media Rating Council on an ongoing basis.

The technology is endorsed by 20 companies, each of which are members of an industry consortium that signed these founding principles:

The digiTal video adverTising ecosysTem will benefiT from a single open-source technology for measuring ad viewability that is aligned with commonly agreed upon industry standards and that is exposed to broad technical review. we will distribute our technology openly, free of cost and subject it to industry-wide technical review.

The primary goal of The open video viewabiliTy communiTy shall be to create a single open-source viewability measurement technology standard. The community will not define video viewability industry standards, but will actively cooperate with various industry organizations to support the definition of an industry accepted viewability standard.

The open video viewabiliTy communiTy shall be open To all organizations who participate in the digital video advertising ecosystem and who are actively interested in furthering the goal of creating a single digital viewability technology standard.

whiTepaper > viewabiliTy Tubemogul.com 510.653.0684 | ©2014 Tubemogul

2 3

open VideoView

OpEn VIDEOVIEw (Or OpEnVV) Is an OpEn-sOurcE sOlutIOn fOr VIDEO VIEwabIlIty that can bE EasIly aDOptED acrOss thE DIgItal VIDEO EcOsystEm.

inTroducTion:

Did someone actually see my ad? It is a simple question, but as many marketers are discovering in display advertising, the answer is often complicated. If the industry does not act soon, video may suffer the same fate.whaT is viewabiliTy?

Viewability is a technology solution for measuring whether a purchased digital ad has an opportunity to be seen.

Viewability first emerged as a concept in display advertising, where it was sorely needed given how many ads were being served below the fold and were ultimately never seen by the consumer. Viewability offered marketers a way to measure how many ads they purchased were in sight on a page.

In the U.S., the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Media Rating Council created a standard that defined viewability in display advertising. If the ad is at least halfway in frame for one second and a window is active (i.e. a viewer is not in another tab or window), it is considered “viewable.” No standard has been set for video advertising to date.

several key terms to learn are:

● WINDoW ACTIVe: foR A gIVeN TIMefRAMe, ThIS MeASUReS WheTheR A VIeWeR IS IN The SAMe TAB oR WINDoW AS The AD, AND The AD CoUlD TheRefoRe Be SeeN.

● IN-fRAMe oR IN-VIeW: foR A gIVeN TIMe-fRAMe, ThIS MeASUReS hoW MUCh (If ANy) of The AD IS oN-SCReeN AND NoT BeloW The folD.

While viewability was clearly needed in display, many wonder whether it is necessary in video advertising. After all, if a viewer made the effort to click on a video, all but the most unengaged will see the in-stream ads during playback, right? Not always. Viewers sometimes avoid video ads by muting them, or by opening another tab or window to wait them out. The more pervasive issue, though, are video ads that viewers did not intend to watch, often taking the form of fake pre-roll that autoplay in small players on a page. It should be noted that this is a first in advertising generally. TV advertisers, for instance, do not have census-level reporting on how many of their ads get skipped by DVRs.

We appreciate the insights and cooperation this group has committed to bring to the Viewable Impression dialogue.We hope others will follow the consor tium’s lead and add to the data we can assess.

— george ivie // CEO and Executive

Director of the Media Rating Council

aVerage VIeWabIlIty rate for comscore 100 sItes There are two common reasons a video ad

is not seen:

1. cOnsumEr IgnOrEsThis is the natural rate of viewability, similar to the concept of the natural rate of unemployment in economics -- a recognition that some viewers will always ignore an ad if given the opportunity. online, this happens by viewers muting them, or by opening another tab or window or scrolling down to wait them out.

2. faKE prE-rOll These are video ads that a viewer had no intention of watching. Usually, these pre-rolls autoplay in small, banner-sized (300x250) players on a page, often below the fold.


4 5

state of Viewability

thE fOllOwIng arE KEy DEcIsIOn pOInts that arE stIll In flux arOunD a DEfInItIOn fOr VIEwabIlIty bEtwEEn DIffErEnt VEnDOrs In thE marKEt:

• Is it one second, any five seconds or a continuous five seconds that must be watched for a viewable video impression to be counted?

• Does an inactive window cause an impression to not be viewable?

• Does a video playing with the sound muted count as a viewable impression?

sIte a

sIte b

sIte c

sIte d

sIte e

sIte f

sIte g

sIte h

sIte I

sIte j

sIte k

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

www.tubemogul.com

once you go, you Know

Added: 7 days ago Likes: 22,775

VIeWable ImpressIon aD lOaD aD start 100% viewable 5 sEcOnDs 91% viewable 1st quartIlE 72% viewable cOmplEtIOn 100% viewable mutED FalSe wInDOw actIVE TRUe

All numbers in this section leverage openVV technology. for the purposes of this section, “viewable” means that in any five seconds of playback, the video is at least 50% in-frame, is unmuted and is playing on an active window or tab. Unmeasurable inventory is excluded.

wE EstImatE OVEr 100 mIllIOn faKE prE-rOll strEams pEr Day glObally.

How much video ad inventory is viewable overall? Typical remnant inventory is 22.8% viewable in the first five seconds of playback, on average. Premium direct buys average 48.9% viewability.

VIEwabIlIty ratEs Vary wIDEly by publIshEr. bElOw Is a graph wIth a typIcal rangE amOng cOmscOrE 100 sItEs.

ratEs Vary by publIshEr, but EVEn fOr full-EpIsODE playErs It Is nOt uncOmmOn fOr half Of aDs tO gO unsEEn.


6 7

over one-third of video ads cannot be measured for viewability. There are two main reasons for this: either the technology purporting to track viewability does not cover all of the different video player types, or a video ad is loading in an iframe. over half (56.8%) of unmeasurable impressions come from iframes, which typically mask where an ad is really running and block domain-level visibility.

Approaches vary on key issues. Should an impression be considered viewable during the first second of playback or when the video completes, for instance? Then there is whether a video is muted. The IAB’s draft standard for video viewability says that the “presence of audio is encouraged, but not required.”

reasons for non-VIeWabIlIty

aVerage VIeWabIlIty rate

WIndoW InactIVe

300-500 pIxels

VIdeo out of frame

500-1000 pIxels

muted

1001+ pIxels

91.6%

21.6%

21.7%

35.8%

10.7%

50.5%

bElOw arE thE mOst cOmmOn tEchnIcal rEasOns a VIDEO aD Is nOt VIEwED (nOtE: thEsE OVErlap).

playEr sIzE plays a largE rOlE In whEthEr a VIDEO aD gEts sEEn. bElOw arE aVEragE VIEwabIlIty ratEs by playEr wIDth:

state of confusion

currEntly, VIDEO VIEwabIlIty Is a patchwOrK Of prOprIEtary stanDarDs. almOst EVEryOnE In thE spacE says thEy haVE sOmE fOrm Of rEpOrtIng, but fEw agrEE On what It mEans.

46.7% of Tv digital video recorder (DvR) users skip broadcast Tv adsaccording To nomura securiTies analysis, 2012

What poInt In tIme or duratIon of tIme do you use for a VIeWable ImpressIon? Q1.

IntEgral: Duration - 5 non-consecu-tive secs

However, we do provide viewability on all other metrics such as providing viewability rates for first quartile, competion etc.

tubEmOgul: Duration - 5 non-consecu-tive secs

tubeMogul defines viewability as five non-consecutive seconds, but also gives viewability rates during specific intervals of video playback (25% completion, 50% completion, 75% completion, 100% completion).

mOat: Duration - 5 non-consecu-tive secs

Moat follows the Mrc and iaB guidelines for video ad viewability. We report the percent-age of measurable impressions where at least 50% of the player was viewable with the ad playing for at least five cumu-lative seconds. as an additional diagnostic metric, we also report the percentage of impressions where the player was viewable with the ad playing for at least one second.

tElEmEtry: otHer - Please coMMent

telemetry record several points, including “at ad start” (represented as publisher responsibility), at messaging points (25%, 50%, etc; useful for creative analysis) and a measure similar to the iaB/3Ms/strawman defini-tion of “5 seconds, etc” as useful for alignment with audience data.

VInDIcO: Point in tiMe - 1 sec

We currently apply the display view-ability standard to our video viewabil-ity measurement. at least 1/2 the surface area of the ad in-view for at least 1 second.

aDap.tV: otHer - Please coMMent

adap.tv has multiple keys and metrics to measure viewable impressions: viewable ad impressions: the number of ad impressions where 50% or more of the ad surface area is within the browser’s active view window at the first frame and first second of ad completion.viewable 25/50/75/100% completed views: [4 metrics] the number of ad impressions that are viewable (50% or more of the ad surface is within the browser’s active view window) for every second through the 25/50/75/100% completion mark.

VIDEOhub: no resPonse

no response

InnOVID: Point in tiMe - otHer

until the viewability standard is inked by the Mrc, we are surfacing the vieability data on multiple time points (1sec, 5sec, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) and making sure the agency knows the “standard” for viewabile impres-sion currency is not yet fully defined -- however we have the data and care to share.

unmeasurableunrepresentative sample with iframes, syndicated players and more

measurableVerified, on- site inventory

To clear up misconceptions, TubeMogul sent the following survey to the major video ad servers and other companies that have proprietary solutions for viewability. Inset are their responses.

VIDEO ADS

Tubemogul.com 510.653.0684 | ©2014 Tubemogul

9whiTepaper > viewabiliTy

8

The Media Rating Council’s current video viewability draft standard is fairly broad. August’s joint meeting featured a definition that “requires that 5 seconds of the ad is played, meeting the 50% pixel requirement.” The five seconds can be non-continuous.

do you report the percent of unmeasurable ImpressIons?do you exclude 300x250 players from your VIeWabIlIty rate calculatIon? (e.g. If 100 total impressions, where 90 are unmeasurable and 5 are viewable, but all 90 unmeasurable impressions are 300x250 iFrame, what is your viewability rate? 5%? 50%? Other?)

does your defInItIon of VIeWabIlIty Include unmute, WIndoW actIVe and 50% of the VIdeo player pIxels In-frame? If no, please comment on your defInItIon of VIeWable.

do you project your VIeWabIlIty rate onto your unmeasurable ImpressIons? (e.g. If 100 total impressions, where 90 are unmeasurable and 5 are viewable, what is your viewability rate? 5%? 50%? Other?)

Q2.Q4.

Q5.Q3.

IntEgral: Yes IntEgral:

50%

currently do not exclude.

IntEgral: no - Please coMMent

We only include what iaB says which is active Window, >50%, and 5 seconds non-continuous

IntEgral: 50%

Based on Mrc standard viewabable rate = viewable/measure. However we also provide a measured rate which is measured/total

tubEmOgul: Yes tubEmOgul:

no

We do not exclude specific player sizes. reporting on player size is built-in.

tubEmOgul: Yes - all of tHe aBove

tubEmOgul: no

We report viewability rates based on number of measurable impressions.

mOat: Yes mOat:

otHer - Please coMMent

Moat collects data on player size, and our reporting interface makes it easy to filter on size.

mOat: Yes - all of tHe aBove

mOat: otHer - Please coMMent

Moat follows the Mrc and iaB guidelines. the guidelines require vendors to calcu-late viewability as the percentage of measurable impressions that were viewable and also require that vendors include a measurability rate in their reporting. Moat can measure viewability in all non-iframe scenarios and can measure viewabil-ity through hostile iframes in most circumstances.

tElEmEtry: Yes tElEmEtry:

otHer - Please coMMent

300x250 players aren’t necessarily unmeasureable.


for the 3Ms definition (useful for audience measurement): Yes. for all other definitions, no.


You should not show the mean (average) without also showing the variance. that’s 5% viewable with a 10% sample size, or 50% mean with a ±90% variance

VInDIcO: Yes

We report delivered (vindico ad server impressions) mea-sured and viewable impressions along with all respective % rates.

VInDIcO: otHer - Please coMMent

We do not exclude any player sizes from our viewabil-ity calculations. furthermore, we are able to measure viewability in iframe. therefore the same calcu-lations as in Q3 would apply to this scenario.

VInDIcO: Yes - all of tHe aBove

in this scenario, the impression would be measured as viewable.

VInDIcO: no

We only report viewability rates based on measured impressions; # viewable impressions / total # measured impres-sions. in the scenario you listed within, 5 viewable impressions / 10 measured impressions (since 90 were unmeasur-able) would yield a viewability rate of 50%.

aDap.tV: Yes

if the video player’s view area isn’t detected, the viewability is “n/a” second through the 25/50/75/100% completion mark.


adap.tv has separate metrics to measure player size. a 300x250 player might be viewable but with a “small” player size.

aDap.tV: Yes - all of tHe aBove


adap.tv does not project viewability rate, we provide detailed viewability information. it is users’ interpreta-tion that defines the “viewability rate.”


no response


no response


no response


no response

InnOVID: Yes

to give better service to our cli-ents to “see in the dark” even when the impression is “unmeasurable” from a viewability standpoint, we try to surface everything we can share about that impression (player size, viewing dura-tion, engagement, in-focus etc.)

InnOVID: otHer - Please coMMent

We do not exclude, but we do try to estimate how many of the impressions ran in a banner placement


currently we do not include active window and unmute as part of the “viewabilty” number but we Do surface those numbers seperately to give full transparency to our clients. once the full standard for viewable impres-sion will be defined by the Mrc we will full comply with that definition.


innovid does not sell media, we are purely in the technology space so we see results from all across the spectrum depand-ing on where the agency purchased the media from.

To deliver maximum campaign per formance for our clients, we must ensure deliver y to quality inventor y and engage a robust, hard-working set of metrics across ever y campaign. Quality indicators like viewability, coupled with repor ting capabilities that capture percent of measurable impressions, player size and the domain where the video adver tisement appeared are critical to ensure quality inventor y and maximum campaign per formance for our adver tisers. as such, a standard for video viewability should not only be inclusive of the percent of the ad in-view for more than one second, but also account for active window and muting data. we expect that the Openv v technology will aid in the adoption of a viewability standard and drive optimization capabilities, which will ultimately help stamp out deliver y to low quality or fraudulent inventor y sources.— cheryl sTump // Director of Audience on Demand at VivaKi


10 11

tubEmOgul’s OngOIng analysIs suggEsts that sEVEral thIngs arE KEy In ImprOVIng VIEwabIlIty:

six things to look for in a Viewability solution

DOmaIn-lEVEl VIsIbIlIty: Currently, most reporting in the market only tracks campaign or publisher-level viewability, when deeper visibility is needed. for instance, a broadcaster might have both full episodes and syndicated content among its inventory, with varying levels of viewability, but all an advertiser might see is a large chunk of unviewable inventory. ● cOntrOl: Advertisers should be able to act on the viewability information, turning off low-performing sites. ●

DIsclOsurE Of mEasurabIlIty: Not all ads can be tracked for viewability, and simply projecting the viewability rate onto unmeasured inventory can be misleading. over half (56.8%) of ads that cannot be measured for viewability are loaded in iframes, which typically mask where an ad is really running and often have far lower rates of viewability. ●

playEr sIzE: Small player sizes are usually a giveaway that a site has fake pre-roll, which have abysmal viewability rates. ●

InactIVE wInDOw: This is not universally available but is key given that 91.6% of ads that are not viewable are due to a viewer being in another window or tab. ● mutE: Is a video ad better seen but not heard? It is doubtful many marketers would accept that proposition.

4

standard In flux

conclusion

ultImatEly, It Is up tO aDVErtIsErs anD publIshErs tO DEcIDE upOn a stanDarD.

many Of thEsE statIstIcs wIll lIKEly cOmE as a shOcK tO sOmE In thE InDustry.

It is a difficult decision. even something as simple as whether an ad is considered “viewable” at the first second of playback or when a video ad finishes can have drastic consequences on viewability. for every video quartile (i.e. 25% played), viewability rates go down by 6.6%, according to TubeMogul’s analysis.

TubeMogul hopes that an open-source approach and radical transparency will help marketers get closer to a future where every ad gets watched. one fact is clear: if marketers are not in full control of where an ad is running at all times, there is little they can do to get there.

Regardless of the standard adopted, given the importance of player size and mutes in diagnosing unviewable inventory, marketers should look for a solution that covers these metrics.

2

3

5

6

1

TubeMogul is The leading enTerprise sofTware coMpany for

digiTal branding. The world’s largest brands and agencies unify their

video advertising on Tubemogul’s programmatic platform. by using a single,

integrated solution, Tubemogul’s clients gain control over their video spend,

simplify their workflow and verify the success of their campaigns. founded in

2006, Tubemogul is based in emeryville, california with offices across north

america, europe, asia and australia.

cOntact:

www.tubemogul.com@Tubemogul

tubemogul viewability whitepaper us jan2014

Documents