How To Calculate Viewability: An Ad Viewability Rate Guide

In digital advertising, every second counts, and optimizing ad viewability is crucial for boosting campaign success and revenue.

Ready to skyrocket your ad performance? Dive into the world of ad viewability rates! Discover how to fine-tune key metrics to keep your campaign on track and enhance both visibility and revenue in a fun and effective way.

How do you avoid advertising blindness? Viewability rates are part of the answer. Here’s what you will learn.

• What is Viewability Rate?
  • Key Metrics that Influence Viewability Rate
  • Challenges of Achieving High Viewability Rates

• How to Calculate Viewability
  • Viewability Formula
  • Examples of Viewability Calculations

Beat industry benchmarks by 4-10k on average with a programmatic advertising partner 

What Is Viewability Rate?

As an advertiser, you want to know how often your ad appears and if people notice and interact with it. An ad viewability rate estimates the potential percentage of time your ad is viewable by your target demographic. It varies for display versus video ad formats. 

• At least 50% of the area of your display or video ad must be visible to consumers—1 second for display ads and a minimum of 2 seconds for video. 
• Large display ads require at least 30% visible pixels.
• Linking your viewability rate with industry viewability benchmarks helps you measure the effectiveness of your campaign’s ad placement. A viewability rate between 60% and 80% is considered acceptable and healthy. 

If your percentage falls below this range, it indicates that recalibration is needed to get your campaign back on track and achieve your goals.

Key Metrics That Influence Viewability Rate

Here are four key metrics you’ll want to track:

1. Ad size and position: Larger ads typically have higher viewability rates as they are more noticeable and remain on the screen longer and ads placed above the fold or in prominent areas of a webpage.
2. Average viewable CPM : Determines viewable total CPM (cost per thousand impressions) spent to serve only viewable impressions (cost ÷ viewable ads x 1000).
3. Ad engagement: Tracks how visible an ad is on websites or mobile apps and how long users engage. Engaging content will improve ad viewability, as users are more likely to scroll and interact with the page.
4. Page Load Speed: Faster-loading pages ensure ads appear promptly, increasing the likelihood that users will see them.

Challenges Of Achieving High Viewability Rates

Advertisers face the ongoing challenge of balancing viewability, impressions, and cost to optimize their digital ad campaigns. If an advertiser attempts to target a high viewability rate, especially those between 80% -100%, it can be costly because they often require purchasing premium ad placements that are in high demand and limited supply.

• These prime spots, such as above-the-fold positions on web pages, demand higher CPMs to ensure ads are actually seen by users. 
• Consequently, aiming for these rates can strain budgets and reduce the overall number of impressions, thereby limiting the reach and scalability of advertising campaigns. 
• Most advertisers find a viewability rate of around 70% to be a reasonable target that balances cost and inventory availability. 

Next Millennium, on the other hand, advocates for a 90% benchmark as an exemplary target. 

• This high standard is achieved through our unique inventory, secured via direct partnerships with publishers. 
• These partnerships grant access to premium ad spaces that are not available through open exchanges and provide advertisers with higher quality content, coupled with high-impact ad units that drive superior viewability rates.

To effectively navigate these challenges, advertisers should focus on optimizing their ad placements to maximize visibility within budget constraints and verify traffic quality. 

Take the guesswork out of Ad Viewability! Get all the essential insights and solutions you need to master ad performance and drive results.

How To Calculate Viewability With The Viewability

Formula

Thankfully, the secret sauce is available to everyone. To calculate ad viewability, follow these steps:

1. Determine Total Viewable Impressions: This is the number of times your ad is seen.
2. Find Total Measured Impressions: This is the total number of times your ad is delivered to a web page.
3. Divide Total Viewable Impressions by Total Measured Impressions: This gives you the fraction of impressions that were viewable.
4. Multiply by 100: To get the percentage of viewable impressions.

So, the formula standardized by the industry is as follows:

The viewability formula is crucial for assessing campaign effectiveness. It helps determine whether you are achieving the projected percentage of impressions within the designated timeframe and budget. Failing to meet these benchmarks can be costly, especially when every advertising dollar is valuable.

Examples Of Viewability Calculations

Let’s look at a real-life example. Hasbro, a Next Millennium client, sought to increase brand awareness and drive sales of Play-Doh products in the US. Adopting the high-impact Next Tack+ ad format, Next Millennium launched a comprehensive programmatic advertising campaign across premium websites. 

• A total of 100 million impressions were served, resulting in 93 million views. 
• This translates to a viewability rate of 93%.
• Additionally, the average view duration exceeded 29 seconds, leading to a 237% increase in click-through rate for Hasbro. 

These results demonstrate that achieving exceptional viewability rates is indeed possible.

Want your campaigns to surpass competitors and industry benchmarks with exceptional reach and viewability? Discover the benefits of direct versus programmatic advertising.

Increase Your Ad Viewability With Next Millennium’s Programmatic Advertising Solutions

At Next Millennium, we understand your sales goals and know how to leverage programmatic advertising to drive revenue and outshine your competition. Our viewability rates reach 90% and above with our premium inventory and high-impact ad units.

Our approach is grounded in proven methodologies, not guesswork, and  we’re excited about the results we deliver and believe you will be too. 

Book a discovery call today to start transforming your ad spend and achieving remarkable results.