Viewability
/vyo͞oəˈbilədē/
verb

1. The quality or state of being viewable

Viewable
/vyo͞oˈəb(ə)l/
adjective

1. Possessing attributes which allow others with the means or skill to look at or inspect it to do so.<"this digital="" display="" ad="" is="" confusing,="" probably="" because="" it="" lacks="" viewability="" and="" i="" can="" only="" see="" 30%="" of="" it."="">;especially : the ability to see enough of a digital ad on screen to allow that ad to have the impact the advertising company would have hoped for.</"this>

Measurable metric, or vague concept?

You be the judge...

Defining “Viewability”- The Adimo Dictionary

Remember the good old days, back when you could either see something or you couldn’t?

Things were so simple back then.

If you bought a ticket to an event, and there was something blocking part of your view, you could get a discount, and it said “obstructed view” in plain English right on the ticket. If you were considering advertising on a billboard, all you had to do was take a look and you could tell right away whether people could see it clearly or if there was a tree in the way.

But in the digital age, things have become much more complicated.

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a digital advertisement can be considered “viewable” so long as at least 50% of the ad’s pixels appear on screen for at least 1 second.

Yes, technically speaking, each of the ads in the above video, which appeared for exactly 1 second, and from which 50% of the pixels appeared, meet the IAB’s viewability standards. They count.

They count, and brands have to pay for them.

Did they make an “impression”?

Maybe.

Would similar standards apply if a brand bought an advertising placement in say, a magazine, or during a TV program?

Digital ad space differs from that of traditional advertising channels in several ways:

• Users often click on and off of a web page very quickly
• Screen sizes and shapes can vary widely across devices, effecting ad layout
• Ad blockers can interfere with ad delivery
• Scrolling tools can move an ad off-screen in a split-second
• Rendering issues are a real concern

These and other factors combine to make measuring viewability in digital terms a bit of a tricky business.

So what is “viewability”?

In digital marketing terms, “Viewability” is essentially a measure of whether or not an advertisement can be seen by the user of a device. Measured in “views” or “impressions” marketers purchase digital ad space based on the number of views/impressions that ad will receive whilst being displayed on screen.

Ads can appear for varying amounts of time depending on the web page on which they are displayed. Ads can also often be only partially visible on screen at any given time, again depending on the web page on which they are displayed.

As stated previously, there are standards currently in place to determine whether an ad is or isn’t considered viewable – whether it has appeared for an acceptable amount of time and whether enough of its pixels have appeared on screen to be considered to have made an impression- the IAB’s standards being the current accepted method of measurement.

Whether a standard like the IAB’s goes far enough to ensure that the advertiser has gotten his/her money’s worth when purchasing such digital advertising space is a matter for another blog post.