Opinion

Viewability: ‘An ugly blemish for ad tech and programmatic buying’

Research shows that only 41 per cent of ads are viewable on open exchanges – so why are marketers still not taking this seriously, asks Bob Hoffman

First the disclaimer: I’m not a researcher, I’m a copywriter.

When I print research results I try to use only third party sources I trust. There are often no perfectly dispassionate sources and you have to use some discretion. But unlike idiot agencies, you shouldn’t rely on Facebook to tell you what Facebook’s metrics are.

Nevertheless, all research is modelling and interpretation so you always have to look at the source, the methodology and the credentials of the researchers before you take it too seriously.

Having said that, a report issued last week by Aki Kinetic and Marketing Science is pretty astounding. It claims that overall, 43 per cent of mobile ad impressions studied were fraudulent.

This remarkable result is based on a study of 1 billion ad impressions from nearly 1,000 mobile apps.

Marketing Science is the consulting company of Dr Augustine Fou, whose credentials are pretty impressive. Here’s a summary of what they found.

Second, here’s a summary of a study conducted by Dr Fou on viewability. The bottom line is that he found only 41 per cent of ads were viewable on open exchanges vs 91 per cent for “good publishers” — another ugly blemish for ad tech and programmatic buying.

Bob Hoffman has been the CEO of two independent agencies and is the author of the Ad Contrarian blog

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