Viewability Archives - Integral Ad Science

End-to-End Ad Measurement is Super Valuable — Here’s Why

IAS Team — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 10:00:00 +0000

It’s no secret that measurement is a crucial component of successful advertising campaigns. Advertisers and publishers alike have been measuring digital impressions for decades. But ad measurement has evolved significantly since its inception, and impressions aren’t the only metric that matter anymore.

So how comprehensive and actionable is the measurement you’re relying on today?

The right measurement tactics enable you to ensure greater brand protection and impact on valuable media inventory — especially in environments like the open web, where your display and video campaigns are highly visible. In this blog post, we’ll explore why end-to-end ad measurement is invaluable and how it can transform your advertising strategy.

The key ingredients of end-to-end ad measurement

Despite its simplicity in nature, end-to-end ad measurement on the open web can get complicated fast. The advertising ecosystem is complex and busy, with consumers tuning in every day to different formats via multiple streaming platforms, and often in very different contexts. To navigate this complexity, end-to-end measurement must cover several key areas.

Viewability

For advertising to make an impact, it has to be viewed —not just served. Ensuring that your digital ads have the opportunity to be seen by consumers, wherever they are, is critical. All digital ads — desktop, mobile, in-app, browser, display, video — have unique requirements that need to be met when measuring for viewability.

As advertising becomes more sophisticated, brands want to not only prove ROI but also transact on viewability, and that’s why it’s more important than ever to have full-flight data on whether or not an ad was seen. IAS provides coverage for display and video placements across desktop, mobile web, and mobile app, and provides actionable data that reports viewability, fraud, and overall user experience.

Measuring viewability is paramount, so IAS ensures it doesn’t come at the cost of efficiency. We deliver the same set of data to both buyers and sellers so that no time is wasted on reconciliation. Additionally, our predictive data makes it possible for brands to target the most viewable ads available, all before ever placing a bid. Our pre-bid video and display viewability segments are easily accessible within the world’s largest demand-side platforms.

Ad Fraud

There are more than 5.35 billion internet users worldwide using the internet everyday. But unfortunately, sometimes digital ads are delivered to anything but a real person.

Advertising fraud is a persistent threat in the digital space, draining resources and diminishing campaign effectiveness. According to our 19th Edition Media Quality Report, campaigns that are not optimized for fraud tended to encounter levels of fraud up to 14 times higher than those optimized against ad fraud. In fact, 8.4% of non-optimized ad campaign impressions were served to anything but a real human in the second half of 2023.

End-to-end ad fraud measurement can significantly increase transparency to help identify fraudulent inventory. By leveraging ad fraud metrics, marketers can measure the amount of activity their ads are generating from fraudsters, and subsequently use this data to optimize ad spend toward real users via IAS pre-bid solutions. Access to actionable invalid traffic data throughout the entire campaign is key to effectively allocating ad spend and confidently ensuring your ads have an opportunity to reach real users and make an impact.

Brand Safety and Suitability

Brand safety must go beyond the binary. Black and white brand safety and suitability measurement can unnecessarily limit scale and doesn’t give the context marketers need to understand the effectiveness of their ads.

That’s why it’s critical for marketers to build on the power of brand safety with the innovation of suitability. IAS contextual targeting technology reviews all elements on a given page and takes additional steps beyond URL analysis to understand the meaning of the content. Before a bid is even placed, IAS’s predictive science pre-screens pages to filter out content that isn’t suitable for a given brand. Only IAS gets to the true meaning of the content, so marketers can ensure they’re aligning campaigns with consumers who will connect the most with their brand.

End-to-end brand safety and suitability measurement and protection gives marketers the most accurate picture of the content near their ads, and provides brands with the opportunity to safeguard without limiting scale.

4 steps to improve your brand’s performance on the open web

Leverage measurement partners who follow industry standards for viewability
Keep up with benchmarks for viewability, invalid traffic, and brand safety and suitability
Employ AI-powered prevention solutions for invalid traffic and brand safety and suitability to ensure your ads are seen by real people in the right context
Reallocate ad spend based on viewability, invalid traffic, and brand safety and suitability data

Drive superior results today with IAS

By incorporating end-to-end measurement into your digital advertising strategy, you can protect your brand, optimize your ad spend, and achieve superior results. Reach out to an IAS representative today to learn how we can help you harness the full potential of your advertising campaigns.

The post End-to-End Ad Measurement is Super Valuable — Here’s Why appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Effectively Validate Media Quality Across the Microsoft Advertising Network

IAS Team — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Safeguard and scale with Viewabilty, Invalid Traffic, and Brand Safety & Suitability Measurement across Microsoft

Delivering your ads to the right places and driving impact to the right audience has never been easy — until now. Starting today, IAS and Microsoft are joining forces to provide new levels of transparency into ad performance across the Microsoft Advertising Network including Audience Ads and Microsoft Invest.*

Through this expanded collaboration, you can access Viewability, Invalid Traffic, and Brand Safety & Suitability measurement to ensure that your Microsoft ads are running adjacent to brand safe and suitable content and engaging users.

With IAS's Microsoft Advertising Network Measurement, you can:

Validate your campaigns with measurement using trusted third-party reporting and analysis for Audience Ads
Access actionable insights such as viewability, time in view, % completed, invalid traffic rate, and brand safety pass and fail rate
See a holistic view of performance across desktop, mobile web, and in-app for display, video, native, and CTV campaigns

Effectively validate your media quality and maximize engagement with real users across the Microsoft Advertising Network. To get started, download the one sheet and reach out to an IAS representative.

*Powered by Xandr

The post Effectively Validate Media Quality Across the Microsoft Advertising Network appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Transition with Ease to IAS: A Message for Oracle Customers, Partners, and Employees

IAS Team — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 20:04:30 +0000

Oracle’s recent announcement to shut down its advertising business comes at a time of rapid transformation for the industry. We understand that this is an unsettling time for Oracle Advertising’s customers, partners, and employees. Our teams are committed to providing support and enabling a smooth transition during this period of change.

For Oracle Advertising customers and partners, IAS is here to facilitate your smooth transition to our Measurement and Optimization solutions. Our teams are ready to help you maximize ROI while serving as a reliable and innovative partner throughout this moment. We offer a comprehensive suite of solutions designed to deliver superior results and accelerate your progress.

Discover more about our offerings below:

Maximize ROI with Measurement and Optimization solutions for Brands & Agencies
Drive Yield with Media Quality solutions for Publishers
Forge the Future of digital media as our Partner

Additionally, we have a wide range of roles available at IAS and are eager to support Oracle Advertising employees affected by this change. If you find a role that aligns with your expertise, we encourage you to apply directly. Please highlight your skills and that you were impacted by this change.

Our mission at IAS is to be the global benchmark for trust and transparency in digital media quality. We are here to support you and ensure a smooth transition to IAS during this turbulent time.

The post Transition with Ease to IAS: A Message for Oracle Customers, Partners, and Employees appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

What is Podcast Advertising?

IAS Team — Mon, 20 May 2024 10:00:00 +0000

If you’re reading this, you’re probably looking to expand your advertising strategy through podcasts, but you still have one critical question: what is podcast advertising?

Podcast advertising lets you speak to potential customers through digital audio ads within podcast episodes. But in a world where we primarily associate advertising with visuals, you may be wondering how this ad strategy works and how you can take advantage of it to grow your brand.

Let’s dive into the world of podcast advertising.

Does anyone listen to podcast ads?

“Does anyone have any good podcast recommendations?”

Chances are you’ve heard this phrase within the past year, and maybe even more recently than that. That’s probably because podcast listenership has hit an all-time high, with nearly 100 million Americans tuning in every week.

On top of that, U.S. podcast advertising revenue is expected to top $2.5 billion in 2024, up 2,070% since 2015, and more than doubling podcast ad revenue from 2021 ($1 billion).

The benefits of podcast advertising

Podcasts are an incredibly popular source of entertainment. Whether you’re a true crime fanatic, a pop culture buff, or a marketer wanting to learn more about stopping ad fraud, there’s a podcast for just about anything.

With that, there are multiple benefits to launching a podcast advertising campaign:

Incremental Reach: Podcast advertising allows you to replenish the top of your marketing funnel with new customers. Podcast listeners are primarily a younger audience, so you can market to them and advertise on radio or traditional TV to avoid targeting a duplicative audience.
Improved Overall Marketing Performance: Adding podcast advertising to your campaigns can improve performance across the board. The Guardian found that the compounding effects of podcast ads as part of a media mix helped 34% of listeners learn something new about a brand.
Increased Brand Trust: A study conducted by Acast and Nielsen found that 63% of respondents trust the podcast host to whom they’re listening. An additional 80% said they trusted the host’s recommendations.
Increased Audience Reach: Podcast ads let you reach audiences beyond traditional TV, social media, and display campaigns. For example, a podcast ad campaign opens up your reach to millions of people listening to podcasts on their morning and evening commutes to work.

How do ads work in podcasts?

Like most advertising strategies, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to podcast advertising. Brands can choose from these three common formats when it comes to delivering their ads via podcast:

1. Host-read sponsorships

Other names for this format include host-read ads, sponsor ads—or more commonly today—sponsorships.

These are longer, editorialized commercial messages the podcaster delivers themselves. The idea behind these ads is that the influencer delivers a creative and authentic message to their audience promoting the brand sponsoring the podcast episode.

With the right timing, a podcast host can segue into these live reads naturally from a topic, and the audience may be more likely to engage with the product or service. A typical host-read ad can range from 60 seconds to a couple of minutes.

2. Pre-recorded ads

Also known as announcer-read ads, pre-produced ads, or just audio ads, pre-recorded ads are created by the advertiser and given to the podcast host to play during an ad break.

Most pre-recorded audio ads run anywhere from 15-30 seconds, and are dynamically inserted into podcast shows by targeting campaign dates, geographic location, podcast categories, and audience demographics. This targeting is set up before launching a campaign to narrow down which listeners should hear your ad and which shouldn’t.

3. Branded content

Though not as common as sponsorships and audio ads, branded content integrates a promotional message into the editorial content of the podcast.

This can be in the form of a branded segment or episode, and can even encompass an entire series. For this format to succeed, the branded content and podcast advertising the brand must align in their messaging to feel organic and resonate with the audience in a non-intrusive manner.

Where is the best place to insert podcast ads?

Different ad spots dictate when your audience will hear your ads during the podcast. Like podcast ad formats, there are three types of ad spaces:

Pre-roll ads are placed at the beginning of the podcast episode. Pre-roll ads are considered effective because most people will just let them play since they are leading into the episode.
Mid-roll ads are placed in the middle of an episode that is 10 minutes or longer. Most consumers will be engaged in other activities by this point, making it highly likely that they will let the ad play. As a result, this is the most lucrative place for audio ads.
Post-roll ads play at the end of an episode. While there is a chance listeners will just let the ad play while they wait for the next episode, there is also a chance they turn off the podcast before they can hear the ad.

Dynamic vs. baked-in ads

How do ads work in podcasts that are no longer relevant? And what if I want my ads to reach different audiences?

Along with choosing from the three types of formats and ad placements, there are also two different ways to fill an ad slot: ads can be “baked-in” or inserted dynamically.

Baked-in ads are added to the podcast audio file, making it a permanent ad placement. All listeners will hear the same ad, and it will remain in the episode as long as it is up, meaning individuals who go back to listen to an older episode will still hear your ad.

Dynamic ads are inserted into chosen ad spots (pre-, mid-, or post-roll) and can be targeted to a desired audience at any chosen time. Podcasters can also keep their advertising up-to-date, allowing them to monetize older podcasts with new ads.

The world is listening. The question is: are they listening to you, or your competitors?

Make your brand heard with IAS

Let IAS help ensure your audio ad spend is heard, measurable, and transparent with industry-leading media quality measurement for digital audio — including podcasts.

When you measure your podcast ads with IAS, you can:

Validate your campaigns using trusted third-party reporting and analysis for audio campaigns compliant to MRC standards
Access actionable insights such as audible rate, audible impressions, invalid traffic rate, and more
Receive a holistic view of performance with support across formats, globally

Ready to drive superior results in podcasting? Contact us today and let’s protect your brand and ensure your audio ads resonate with real people.

The post What is Podcast Advertising? appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Industry-Leading Media Quality for TuneIn

IAS Team — Wed, 08 May 2024 12:00:00 +0000

IAS Audibility and Invalid Traffic measurement is now available for TuneIn

Marketers are concerned about fraud in digital audio — and it makes sense why. With an opportunity to reach nearly three-quarters of U.S. internet users, it’s crucial for marketers to know their ad spend is reaching real people.

That’s why IAS is bringing its industry-leading media quality measurement to TuneIn. Starting today, marketers can have further confidence that their audio ads on TuneIn are driving engagement with real users.

With IAS Audibility and Invalid Traffic measurement on TuneIn, marketers can:

Validate campaigns using trusted third-party reporting and analysis for audio campaigns, compliant to MRC standards
Access actionable insights like audible rate, audible impressions, invalid traffic rate, and more
See a holistic view of performance with support across in-app and web browser streaming campaigns for the audio ad format

Drive engagement on TuneIn with the industry’s most actionable data. Download the one sheet now and reach out to an IAS representative to get started.

The post Industry-Leading Media Quality for TuneIn appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Media Quality Report: 19th Edition

IAS Team — Tue, 07 May 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Industry-leading benchmarks for superior media quality

The digital landscape continues to evolve at a rapid rate, offering marketers endless opportunities for innovation. But in an era where change is the only constant, it’s critical for marketers to know if their campaigns are keeping up with the pace of digital media.

The 19th edition of the Media Quality Report (MQR) is here to serve as a trustworthy tool for marketers worldwide to benchmark campaign success. This year’s report offers marketers an in-depth look into global media quality data, key trends shaping the digital landscape in 2024, and country-level metrics for a more enriched way to make data-driven decisions.

Dive into this year’s key trends, with highlights including:

Fraud rates for unprotected campaigns were 14x higher than campaigns protected against fraud
Time-in-view hit a new low in H2 2023
Brand risk rose in the Americas as election cycles began

As the gold standard in digital media quality, the MQR arms marketers with actionable insights that are key to forging an innovative, impactful, and safer digital future.

Download the report today to access IAS’s industry-leading global benchmarks and drive superior results.

The post Media Quality Report: 19th Edition appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

IAS Earns MRC Accreditation for Third-Party Calculation and Reporting of Youtube Viewability

IAS Team — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Protect your brand and verify impact on YouTube with IAS

IAS is excited to announce that we have earned accreditation by the Media Rating Council (MRC) for third-party calculation and reporting of YouTube Viewability on desktop and mobile.

This valued accreditation affirms IAS’s commitment to trust and transparency. With this accreditation, IAS will deliver MRC-accredited, third-party YouTube Viewability reporting through Google’s Ads Data Hub for Measurement Partners (ADH-MP). This reporting includes key buying platforms including Google Ads, Display & Video 360, and YouTube Reserve for both desktop and mobile.

Ad formats covered for IAS’s MRC accredited Viewability for YouTube include:

Skippable and non-skippable in-stream ads
Standard in-stream ads
YouTube Select
Bumper ads

Download the one sheet today or reach out to your IAS representative to learn more. For more information, check out the press release.

The post IAS Earns MRC Accreditation for Third-Party Calculation and Reporting of Youtube Viewability appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

HP Drives Attention and Results with IAS and Lumen Research

IAS Team — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 21:23:40 +0000

IAS data shows that in-view ads amplify attention

IAS partnered with Lumen Research to understand the correlation between viewability and attention for technology brand HP. In this case study, IAS and Lumen Research examined the impact of media quality and attention across HP’s campaign, measuring the attention each ad received by combining Lumen Research’s focus data — which features eye tracking — with IAS’s viewability data.

Here’s what we found:

11.5x increase in attention scores for in-view ads compared to out-of-view ads
3x increase in success events with higher attention scores
70% lower cost per success event with higher attention scores

Media quality gets attention, and attention gets results. Download the case study now to learn more about how viewability can be a key driver of attention for your brand.

To learn more about how IAS and Lumen Research are bringing cutting-edge eye tracking technology and predictive attention models to the market, click here.

The post HP Drives Attention and Results with IAS and Lumen Research appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Verify intrinsic in-game buys in Frameplay’s gaming ecosystem

IAS Team — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 11:59:00 +0000

Advertise confidently in gaming environments with IAS-accredited Invalid Traffic measurement

Your ad spend is valuable in every environment. When it comes to gaming, rest easy knowing your buys are more transparent than ever before in Frameplay’s gaming ecosystem with industry-leading Invalid Traffic (IVT) measurement from IAS.

Through this integration, marketers can verify that their valuable intrinsic in-game ad placements are seen by real gamers with precise impression counts in a fraud-free environment.

With IAS invalid traffic (IVT) measurement and impression counts in Frameplay’s gaming ecosystem, marketers get:

Global measurement for a holistic view of intrinsic in-game media buys
Trusted, third party reporting with daily reporting in the IAS Signal UI
Comprehensive coverage across formats and environments

Advertise in Frameplay’s network of premium games with confidence that your campaigns are engaging real gamers and driving results. Download the one sheet now to get started.

IAS is all-in on gaming. Learn more about what gamers want from intrinsic in-game ads here and check out IAS’s gaming capabilities on the Insider blog.

The post Verify intrinsic in-game buys in Frameplay’s gaming ecosystem appeared first on Integral Ad Science.

Movistar Colombia Increases Media Efficiency and Quality with IAS

IAS Team — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 21:14:23 +0000

IAS drives KPIs and media quality for major telecommunications company

The challenge: Movistar, a major Colombian telecommunications provider, wanted to drive cost efficiency and media quality across their programmatic campaigns.

The solution: Movistar partnered with IAS to drive results across media quality KPIs, including improving brand safety, viewability, and invalid traffic rates. Overall, Movistar aimed to achieve higher ROI and protect their brand image from unsafe and unsuitable content.

The results: IAS exceeded initial KPIs and ultimately achieved:

99% brand safety rate, protecting Movistar’s brand image and reputation
83% viewability rate, allowing ads to be seen by real and relevant eyes
0.16% invalid traffic rate, ensuring maximization of return on ad spend (ROAS)

In total, 12 million ads were tracked and returned a Quality Impression rate of 82.2%, demonstrating the massive impact that IAS solutions had on Movistar.

Drive ROAS and media efficiency with IAS. Download the case study to find out how.

The post Movistar Colombia Increases Media Efficiency and Quality with IAS appeared first on Integral Ad Science.