Video Ad Viewability Rates Flat for 2 Years, Despite the Efforts

Marketers and advertisers have been talking about video viewability rates for years now, and it hasn't made a bit of difference. That sad finding comes from Viant's 2015 Year in Review Video Insights Report, which debuted today. The marketing technology company looked at data from its Vindico ad-serving platform and found that viewability hovered at 46 percent in 2015, almost exactly what it was the year before.

Viewability has been one of the hottest of hot topics at advertising industry events for years, the report notes, as major players have debated if advertisers should shoot for 70 percent viewability as a reasonable goal or accept nothing short of 100 percent. Despite the MRC issuing video ad viewability guidelines in June 2014, Viant found 2015's rate only one percentage point higher than 2014's.

That's not to say that all is gloom-and-doom for viewability. Viant sees major media sites raising their viewability rates to 71 percent from 67 percent the year before, while internet brand sites rose to 50 percent from 45 percent the year before. Exchanges and networks, while accounting for the largest share of video ad impressions, have the worst viewability rates: 39 percent in 2015 compared to 38 percent in 2014.

"Viewability has become one of most hotly debated topics in digital advertising, and understandably so, as marketers have been demanding more transparency and insight into what their ad budgets are doing for them," says Rick Bruner, vice president of research and analytics at Viant. "But despite the fact that the IAB and the buy-side have made increasing viewability a priority for the industry, there was practically no change between overall average viewability rates for campaigns between 2014 and 2015. The industry still has significant measurement challenges and both publishers and advertisers need to prioritize increasing viewability."

The Viant report is essential reading for video marketers, showing how some video key performance indicators, such as completion rates, are rising, while click-through rates are declining fast. In 2015, 30-second video ads were roughly as popular as 15-second ads, but shorter ads enjoy stronger completion rates.

For more, download the full 2015 Year in Review Video Insights Report for free (registration required).

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net