The UK is performing worse than the international average for online ad viewability as it is defined by the IAB and Media Ratings Council. The groups recommended that 50% of said online ads should be in view for at least one second, a metric only 49% of buys are reaching, according to Meetrics’ Q3 viewability report. Although this is up from 47% in 2016 Q2, the UK is still performing well below par in comparison to other European countries. Anant Joshi, Meetrics’ director of international business, said: “We’d expected a bigger improvement in the UK,however, it seems that these efforts only just outweigh the impact of programmatic ad delivery and the amount of ad re-loading done by publishers to boost inventory levels. It’s still translating into about £615 million wasted annually on non-viewable banner ads alone.” IAB/PwC’s Adspend figures estimate that poor viewability is costing UK advertisers around £154m a quarter. Video ads perform much better than others, retaining 68% viewability (over 50% in view for at least two seconds). Richard Robinson, managing director of EMEA at Turn, added: “When it comes to putting a metric against viewability, the natural inclination is to get as close to 100% as possible. Whilst there are hiccups along the way, we’re moving closer all the time, but that shouldn’t be the goal. The goal for marketers should be to sell products. Providing ads that are actually seen by potential customers is a big part of that, but we should not get too hung up on it.” He concluded: “Viewability should be a means to the end of improving that metric. Marketers should pay an appropriate amount to reach a certain level of viewability and go back to focusing on how many units they sold.”
A total of 51 % of all online ads do not reach the online ads viewability recommendations set out by the IAB and Media Ratings Council , according to Meetrics ' annual viewability report . The UK is the worst performer compared to Germany , France and Austria , and £ 615 m is " spent annually on non - viewable banner ads alone " , said Anant Joshi , Meetrics ' head of international business . Video ads perform better , retaining 68 % viewability with over 50 % in view for at least 30 seconds .