'Advertisers should only pay for viewable ads as of 2018': AANA
Australia’s peak advertising body, the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA), has called for advertiser to only pay for digital ads that are viewable as of January 2018. In a recent discussion paper, the AANA said that the industry has to move towards a model of advertising that is only traded on viewable ads, getting rid of wastage costs. Until that point, the AANA suggests that at minimum, 70% of digital ads in one campaign must be viewable or advertisers should ask for recompense. Currently, only 49.3% of digital ads are viewable.
Australia's peak advertising body wants advertisers to only pay for digital ads that are viewable from January 2018.

The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) has released a discussion paper calling on the industry to move towards a model where advertising is only traded on viewable ads, eliminating the significant cost of wastage.

It has been in the works for around two months and is driven by feedback from AANA members that after transparency, viewaibility is their biggest bone of contention.

Until that time, the paper suggests at least 70% of digital ads in a campaign should be viewable otherwise advertisers should demand recompense in the form of viewable make-good inventory to bridge the shortfall.

Integral Ad Science analysis has found that Australia has one of the poorest rates of viewable ads for a mature market.

Fewer than half (49.3%) of digital ads in Australia are viewable, compared with 53.6% in the US, 57.4% in the UK, 61.1% in Germany and 61.6% in France.

To address this, the AANA wants all billings to be based on the number of served impressions in a campaign and these should be separated into measured and non-measured.

In the transition year to pay per view, measured impressions should be held to a 70% viewability rate.

Any shortfall should be bridged with measured viewable impressions until the 70% mark is reached. These impressions should be consistent with inventory purchased in the original campaign.

The AANA is also calling for all bot traffic (ad fraud) to be excluded from viewability results.

Advertisers should be requesting viewability reports from their agencies that show the rate of viewability their digital campaigns are achieving.

Separately, IAB Australia announced yesterday it has established a taskforce to drive clarity and consistency around viewability in the market; the issue is likely to be a hot topic for advertisers in 2017.

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