ad-viewDo you know what this?  It’s considered a completed ad view.  50% of the screen, for at least 1 second.  If those two things happen, it’s considered an impression and you’re charged for it.

 

ad view gif
Completed Ad View

Can’t even tell what the product is or who the advertiser is in this case.

For video, it counts if 50% is visible, with or without sound, and it’s viewed for 2 seconds. So anytime auto play is on and the scroll past a video, it likely counts as a view.

Could you imagine if any other media was sold that way?  I don’t think people would accept it, but it’s become the norm in online sales.  Why?

For one of the world’s largest advertising agencies, they are saying “enough is enough.” Group M spend billions in online advertising.  Some say they control as much as one-third of all global advertising budgets.

Digiday reports the Group M wants stricter standards:

Display Ads

  • 100% of the ad in view

Video Ads

  • 100% of the ad in view
  • Sound on
  • No Autoplay
  • At least half the ad viewed

“If an ad doesn’t have an opportunity to be seen, it doesn’t make sense for our clients.” – John Montgomery, GroupM

Sounds reasonable to me, but likely a tough sell with publishers, especially since they are just now getting traction on online spending.  It means they’ll have to run more ads to get anything close to the numbers they’d been seeing.

Here’s the full story from Digiday.