Viewability rates increase across premium publishers
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Michelle Clancy
| 01 November 2018

Viewability rates for advertising in the US continued to increase quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, an indication that it remains an important metric for brands and agencies.

Viewability is defined as ads that are deemed to be fully seen by consumers and according to Extreme Networks research, the average Viewable Completion Rate (ie, played all the way through), has remained steady for the first three quarters of this year, at 76%. However, this is an 11% increase from the third quarter of 2017.

The largest viewability increase year over year was for premium publishers, who saw an increase of 44% year-over-year, according to the report, reflecting similar gains to those seen in Q2 of this year.

Viewability rates for 30-second ads continued to top those of 15-second spots in Q3, but the gap is closing between the two. Viewability for 15-second ads saw an increase over the second of this year, while the rate for 30-second ads decreased from 79% in Q2 to 75% in Q3.

While 30-second ads continue to surpass their 15-second siblings in VCR, the distance between the two is shortening. The rate for 30-second ads decreased from 82% in Q1 to 78% in the third quarters, while the rate for 15-second spots moved from 74% in Q1 to 75% where it held steady for the last two quarters.

The research also found that the VCR for both premium publishers and aggregators remains very steady for the three quarters of 2018, with the rate for premium sites at 89% and aggregators at 71% in Q3. Extreme Networks also found that that the click-through rate (CTR) remained steady for premium publishers in the third quarter, with a very slight decrease from Q2, landing at 0.12%. The rate for aggregators, while much higher than that of premium sites, saw a significant decline to 0.37% in Q3, down from 0.54% the quarter before. That’s also down from a high in Q1 of 0.59%.

CTRs on all devices declined in Q3 versus Q2. At 0.23%, desktop showed the lowest rate and the smallest decline from Q2. Rates on mobile and desktop fell significantly, landing at 0.41% and 0.39% respectively.