MoneySuperMarket tackles online ad viewability issue

UK price comparison website MoneySuperMarket has appointed Meetrics to address the increasing issue around online ads being served but never seen – a consequence of the rise in the automated buying and selling of online advertising.

Meetrics will help improve the percentage of online ads – bought by MoneySuperMarket through programmatic trading – that will actually be viewable on a webpage, while managing and optimising MoneySuperMarket’s online display ad campaigns through a real-time dashboard. The dashboard will provide data on whether the ad is visible, how long it is seen for and the number of clicks.

Using view time, Meetrics will also be able to isolate and exclude unintentional clicks to give a “truer picture of ad engagement” – the premise being that a person must see an ad for a certain length of time in order to intently click on it.

During a testing phase, MoneySuperMarket saw a 37% lift in ROI by focusing on sites with high ad visibility.

“Ad viewability will become even more important this year at MoneySuperMarket and the industry as a whole,” said Sammy Austin, MoneySuperMarket’s RTB performance media manager, as he explained the decision to work with Meetrics.

“Their historical expertise combined with an advanced road map – such as the ability to categorise impressions based on viewability pre-bid – made them the standout choice. We’ll also be able to customise how we use Meetrics’ solution to most effectively optimise against our KPIs and improve overall campaign performance.”

Anant Joshi, Meetrics’ director of international business added: “The rise of programmatic buying has created a symbiotic increase in ads being served that are never seen. This partnership with MoneySuperMarket is an opportunity for us to address this issue proactively in the UK market and for others to learn from it.”