Aussie news firm Nine to update its digital advertising business
Australian news network Nine is making changes to its digital advertising business which will ensure greater transparency and viewability. Nine plans to overhaul its advertising inventory across the nine.com.au websites and meet the Media Rating Council's viewability standards. By the end of this quarter, Nine wants to be able to provide advertisers with the ability to transact on viewable impressions across display and video. 

Nine has announced a range of major changes to its digital advertising business, aimed at providing marketers and their agencies with greater transparency around issues such as viewability.

Central to the changes has been an ongoing overhaul of the advertising inventory across the nine.com.au websites, a commitment to meeting the MRC viewability standard, as well as providing advertisers with the ability to now transact on viewable impressions across display, with video to be available by the end of this quarter.

“The industry has struggled with viewability for a long time,” Alex Parsons, chief digital and marketing officer at Nine, said. “We want to lead the way in this discussion. We know that we are rapidly moving to a world where viewability – in terms of whether someone has seen your ad – can’t be an added extra. Rather, it should be a baseline marketer expectation.”

Amid the ongoing industry debate around viewability Nine also announced that it:

Is optimising its websites to load faster and therefore improve user experience and ad viewability

Has designed new sticky ad units to optimise viewability on nine.com.au websites to improve ad performance

Has partnered with two of the largest third-party verification vendors in Australia, Integral Ad Science (IAS) and Moat, to enable marketers using either vendor to have discrepancy-free reporting

Is implementing third-party viewability tracking in the 9Now iOS and Android apps to provide in-app verification for Nine’s on-demand video products

“In making these changes our absolute commitment is to provide premium viewed impressions that will be seen by humans and will therefore deliver greater results for marketers,” said Ben Gunn, director of sales, Digital.

“We believe the solution needs to be broader and focused on what achieves the best results for our clients. In this way we will deliver a win/win for both marketers and their partners.”

Amid industry attention on transparency in the digital space, Nine is committed to providing marketers and their agencies with 100 per cent confidence in their investment through third-party verification.

“When it comes to trust, digital players can’t mark their own homework,” said Gunn. “The solution must be that publishers and platforms work to provide more effective ad units and far greater transparency in terms of third-party verification.

“At Nine we will focus on two areas: great content and great products. It is a focus that will allow us to move to a world where viewabilty is no longer part of the conversation but should just be expected. A world where all publishers – regardless of who they are – should be held to these same standards.”