Viewability

Viewability is an optional metric that AdButler can track on top of total impressions. It measures how long an ad is displayed on screen after it has been served to a publisher zone. AdButler marks an impression as "viewable" if it meets the minimum threshold for time on screen as prescribed by the Media Rating Council (MRC).

The minimum threshold for viewability is defined as at least 50% of the pixels in an advertisement being displayed in the viewable space of a user's browser (on an in-focus browser tab) for at least one second. For more information, read the MRC Viewable Ad Impression Guidelines (PDF).

Viewability is becoming a standard metric for ad performance and provides a range of benefits:

  • Increases transparency and trust with your advertisers
  • Better insight into how your ads are performing and whether users are viewing them
  • Indicate opportunities for site content optimization if ads are not being recorded as viewable
If using the JSON Ad API, it's important to note that you use the eligible beacon before the viewable beacon.
You must add the Enhanced Analytics add-on to your subscription to enable Viewability statistics. For information on adding add-ons, read How to change your subscription.

How to see viewability stats

Viewability can be tracked only on Standard Zones using Asynchronous JavaScript or JavaScript zone tags.

When viewability is enabled, it will be active for all publishers and applicable zones in your account. Viewability stats are shown next to each Ad item and Campaign assigned to a Standard zone.

For any campaigns that have previously recorded impressions, there will be a discrepancy between total impressions and viewability statistics in the interface. To get a one-to-one comparison, you will need to create a report with a specific timeframe selected or track viewability on new campaigns.

The viewability statistics of an assigned campaign in AdButler


What the viewability metrics mean

Eligible An eligible impression is recorded when the ad is successfully rendered to the page. This will only include types of ads that are able to be measured for viewability.
Viewable A viewable impression is recorded when an ad is displayed in the user's viewport and meets the iAB criteria for a viewable impression. See above for details.
(Viewable) Rate This metric shows you the percentage of viewable impressions out of all eligible impressions.
Total Impr. An impression is logged whenever a zone tag makes a request for an ad and AdButler's servers respond.

Creating a Statistics Report for Viewability

Reports for viewability can be generated in the same way as any other report by enabling the viewability checkboxes in your settings dropdown of the Statistics Reports page. For more information, read How to create custom reports.

The viewability metrics in Statistics Reports


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