Videology Offers Viewability Guarantees on Self-Service Video Ads

Stop paying for unseen video ads, says Videology. The video advertising technology company announced that it's now letting users of its self-service buying platform make purchases with viewable CPMs (vCPMs) as the target. While there are competing ideas of what makes an ad viewable, Videology says take your pick: Choose either the Media Rating Council (MRC) definition that a video ad is viewable when half its pixels have been on screen for two seconds) or the more sensible Extended Viewability Standard (that all of a video ad's pixels need to be on screen for 50 percent of the ad's duration, with audio on and play deliberately started by a human).

Campaign pricing depends on the media mix the buyer selects. The buyer chooses the desired inventory, and the system forecasts a viewable rate based on historical data points. Buyers see a forecast of guaranteed cost ahead of time, so there are no surprises later.

"As far as the two different standards go, you can generally assume campaigns using the Extended Viewability Standard will be more expensive as that standard is more difficult to achieve than the MRC standard," says Scott Ferber, chairman and CEO of Videology. "It's too early to know the more popular choice. We've seen a pretty balanced request for both, which is why we prioritized having both available in the platform."

Using Vidology's self-service controls, ad buyers input their viewability target, as well as pricing and other target metrics. Results are certified in real-time by the third-party services Moat, DoubleVerify, or Integral Ad Science.

"Within our platform, clients have the choice to serve ads across any media they choose and on any device they choose," Ferber says. "As long as the video supplier has measurable inventory then it can be used to run vCPM campaigns in our platform."

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net