Of Unseen Ads, 76% Did Not Even Appear On Screen

Google announced these alarming stats on web video viewership, summarized in a recent Ad Age article.

In previous posts, we have noted the sad fact that a significant portion of digital display ads are never even seen by humans – tucked away at the bottom of a page, but still being paid for by the advertiser. Last year Google said last year that 56% of the display ads it served on its own and others’ sites never appeared in view on someone’s screen.

Now the focus has changed to video ads. Most of them are thought to run inside a video player, usually before or during the video someone has chosen to watch.

It’s best said in the article, and we quote…

“Sometimes while the pre-roll is playing, people might switch to another tab or scroll down to the comments section, leaving the video ad playing out of view. Then there are the more malicious examples of publishers putting videos ads inside out-of-the-way banners that play automatically when a page loads.

“Nearly half — 46% — of the video ads running across the desktop and mobile web never had a chance to be seen, according to Google. That figure is based on the video ads the search giant has served across the web, but doesn’t include YouTube.

“Not surprisingly, the numbers play out much better for its own service. According to YouTube owner Google, 91% of the video ads running on YouTube’s sites and mobile apps showed up on someone’s screen at least half in view for at least two seconds (in line with the Media Rating Council’s adopted standard).

“Juxtaposing YouTube’s 91% viewability rate with the wider web’s 54% viewability rate isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison. YouTube only runs video ads within the YouTube player where they have a better chance of being seen because that’s where the main content is, and its primary video ad product, TrueView, only charges advertisers if someone watches at least 30 seconds of the brand’s ad. Meanwhile other publishers can stuff video ads within banners and make them play automatically on a page’s fringes; they can even do that with entire video players.

“Of course Google’s hope would seem to be that advertisers will come across these stats and run out to buy its growing lineup of TrueView ads — which are seen unless the audience decides they don’t want to see it — and adopt its DoubleClick ad reporting tools to track what percentage of a brand’s ads had a chance of being seen.”

Hmmm, it’s convenient for Google to have so much hard data at-hand that proves their own solution is superior to others.