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Measurement

Viewability

Viewability measures whether a served advertisement had the opportunity to be seen by a human, based on how much of the creative was rendered in the visible area of a screen and for how long.

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In detail

Viewability distinguishes a delivered impression from a meaningful one. An advertisement can be technically served and recorded while never appearing in the visible portion of a screen, which makes raw impression counts an unreliable measure of delivery quality.

Standards vary by format and market, which is precisely why cross-border campaigns need an agreed reference point. Without one, an advertiser and a media owner can both report accurately and still disagree about what was delivered.

In cross-border work, the value of a third-party viewability measurement is less about the specific threshold applied than about both parties measuring against the same one.

Related terms

Third-party ad server
A third-party ad server is an independent platform that delivers and measures advertising separately from both the advertiser and the media owner, producing a delivery record neither transacting party controls.
GIVT and SIVT
GIVT is general invalid traffic identifiable through routine filtration such as known bot lists; SIVT is sophisticated invalid traffic that requires behavioural analytics to detect because it is engineered to imitate human activity.
Brand safety
Brand safety is the practice of ensuring advertising does not appear adjacent to content that would damage the advertiser's reputation, and that a media owner's inventory does not carry advertising that breaches its own standards.

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Definitions are useful up to the point where you need something moved across the border. That is where a conversation is more useful than a glossary.