What Is Viewability?
Viewability is a metric that indicates whether an ad impression was actually viewable when served to a user.
When Is an Ad Deemed Viewable?
In line with the IAB and Media Rating Council (MRC) standards, a native ad impression is counted as viewable when it meets the following requirements:
Pixel: Greater than or equal to 50% of the pixels in the ad placement were in view;
Time: The time the ad was in view was greater than or equal to 1 second after it was rendered.
Why Is Viewability Important?
Viewability helps marketers by providing metrics on the number of times their ads actually appear in front of users. This helps them understand campaign effectiveness and allocate advertising spend to the most valuable media.
How Does Outbrain DSP Track Viewability?
Currently, Outbrain DSP supports viewability measurement on the native inventory of all exchanges providing viewability information. When analyzing the data, make sure to refer to the measurable impression metric. Click here to get the full list of exchanges that support viewability reporting.
Keep in mind that 3rd party measurement is still available and will not interfere with the viewability measurement provided by Outbrain DSP. Advertisers can provide their own IAS, MOAT, and DoubleVerify JS pixels to be implemented on their content ads.
Understanding the Metrics
All viewability measurements can be found in the columns bar under the Viewability section and are available to view on every level and reporting dimension.
There are a total of 10 metrics available to help you understand performance based on viewability. If you’re just getting started with viewability, here are the key metrics to understand:
% Viewable Impressions - This metric shows the rate of how often your ads were both measurable and viewable by users;
% Measurable Impressions - This metric shows the rate of how often your ads were able to be measured.
For a full description and calculation of every metric, please refer to the list below.
Column | Description | Calculation |
Impressions | Total number of impressions served. | / |
Measurable Impressions | Number of impressions for which viewability was measured. | / |
Not-Measurable Impressions | Impressions for which viewability could not be measured. | Impressions − Measurable Impressions. |
Viewable Impressions | Number of impressions that were viewed by a user. Impression is counted as viewed when 50% of the ad is in view for 1 second. | / |
Not-Viewable Impressions | Number of impressions that were not viewed by a user. | Measurable Impressions − Viewable Impressions |
% Measurable Impressions | Percentage of impressions that were measurable. | 100 * Measurable impressions / Impressions |
% Viewable Impressions | Percentage of viewable impressions out of all measurable impressions. | 100 * Viewable Impressions / Measurable Impressions |
Impression Distribution (Not-Measurable) | Percentage of not-measurable impressions out of all impressions. | 100 * Not-Measurable Impressions / Impressions |
Impression Distribution (Not-Viewable) | Percentage of not-viewable impressions out of all impressions. | 100 * Not-Viewable Impressions / Impressions |
Impression Distribution (Viewable) | Percentage of viewable impressions out of all impressions. | 100 * Viewable Impressions / Impressions |
Avg. VCPM | Average cost per thousand viewed impressions. | 1000 * Total spend / Viewable Impressions |