Four publisher viewability headaches

Sponsored by Xaxis • November 19, 2014 •

The Media Rating Council’s guidelines on viewability are just four months old, so you’ll forgive publishers if they’re still figuring it out. At the Digiday Programmatic Summit today, a roomful of programmatic types are circling around trying to figure out just what viewability is and what it means for the industry.

Publishers, for one, have to consider a short term and long term strategy. “The short term strategy is getting solid viewability measurements to establish a base line and figuring out which of our ad slots will work for our advertisers,” said Jen Witt, director of yield management at Match Media Group. “In the long term, its reworking the design of the page for all ad slots.”

Business Insider factored viewability into their redesign, and is already seeing a boost in their ratings among advertisers, said CRO Pete Spande. “We’ve seen a huge lift in yield as SSPs are starting to rank our site more favorably,” Spande said. “Advertisers will bid more because there’s performance.”

But it’s not an easy win.

Have a look at the short videos below to find out what nagging pains publishers deal with while the industry comes together on this new metric.

“Viewability” varies from user to user (1:02 minutes)