UK online ad viewability rises but still lags behind rest of Europe

UK online ad viewability levels rose for the first time in nine months to the highest seen in over a year, according to the latest quarterly benchmark report from Meetrics; however, the UK still has a long way to go before it catches up with other European countries.

Between April and June 2017, the proportion of banner ads in the UK meeting minimum viewability guidelines increased from 47% to 51% – the highest recorded figure since Q1 2016 when it was 54% – compared to 69% in Austria, 58% in France and 57% in Germany.

Ads purchased directly were found to have better viewability levels (59%) than programmatically purchased ads (52%).

“It’s certainly a step in the right direction and shows ad viewability initiatives, such as from JICWEBS and the like, are starting to impact the market,” Anant Joshi, Meetrics’ commercial director UK & Ireland.

“However, the UK is still well behind other markets and the industry has much work to do. We can’t celebrate the fact that we’re back to almost half of banner ad budgets being wasted on ads that don’t have the chance to be seen.”

For the first time Meetrics also published a viewability figure for video ads, revealing 69% of video ads meet the IAB and Media Ratings Council’s recommendation that 50% of the video ad is in view for at least two seconds.

Joshi added: “As video ad spend continues to rise, it’s extremely encouraging to see such a good initial viewability rate for video.”

“This is partly because viewers tend to be more engaged with video due to its greater screen size and being less surrounded by other ads.”