What’s your project about?

My re­se­arch is about on­line ad­ver­ti­sing ef­fec­ti­ve­n­ess. 50% of glo­bal ad spend goes to­wards on­line ad­ver­ti­sing, which is why it’s cru­cial to un­der­stand what dri­ves its ef­fec­ti­ve­n­ess.

What’s the research problem?

Many on­line ads are never vi­si­ble to users, alt­hough they count as ad im­pres­si­ons, lea­ding ad­ver­ti­sers to waste money on un­se­en ads. To over­co­me this issue, the IAB crea­ted a viewa­bi­li­ty stan­dard. It sta­tes that 50% of an ad needs to be in view for at least one con­ti­nuous se­cond, such that it counts as viewa­ble. This stan­dard was the out­co­me of a po­li­ti­cal pro­cess, ra­ther than being based on em­pi­ri­cal evi­den­ce. 

Which solution does your paper bring to the problem?

We thus study how ad viewa­bi­li­ty (as de­fi­ned by the IAB) af­fects ad­ver­ti­sing ef­fec­ti­ve­n­ess for dif­fe­rent types of web­sites. 

We argue that ad viewa­bi­li­ty is more im­portant for web­sites that users ex­plo­re (e.g., brow­se a home­page), ra­ther than visit to ful­fill a spe­ci­fic goal (e.g., che­cking their email). In case they visit the web­site to ful­fill a spe­ci­fic goal, they are any­way not re­cep­ti­ve to ads, such that it does not make a dif­fe­rence for ad ef­fec­ti­ve­n­ess whe­ther the ad is viewa­ble or not. Yet, for web­sites that users visit to brow­se and ex­plo­re con­tent, ad viewa­bi­li­ty will play a grea­ter role and the ad being viewa­ble should make a dif­fe­rence in ad ef­fec­ti­ve­n­ess.

How did you study this?

To study this ques­ti­on, we use rich ob­ser­va­tio­nal data from a com­pa­ny part­ner. The data co­vers dif­fe­rent types of web­sites (goal vs browsing-​oriented) and in­clu­des ad im­pres­si­ons, their viewa­bi­li­ty, and whe­ther the ad im­pres­si­ons even­tual­ly led to a visit to the ad­ver­ti­ser’s web­site or not. 

What did you find?

We in­de­ed find that ad viewa­bi­li­ty is more im­portant for web­sites that users ex­plo­re (e.g., brow­se a home­page), ra­ther than a visit to ful­fill a spe­ci­fic goal (e.g., che­cking their email). In case they visit the web­site to ful­fill a spe­ci­fic goal, it does not make a dif­fe­rence for ad ef­fec­ti­ve­n­ess whe­ther the ad is viewa­ble or not. For web­sites that users visit to brow­se and ex­plo­re con­tent, the ad being viewa­ble does make a dif­fe­rence in ad ef­fec­ti­ve­n­ess. 

What can practitioners learn from these results?

First, ad­ver­ti­sers should con­sider pay­ing more for viewa­ble ad im­pres­si­ons when the ad ap­pears on a browsing-​oriented web­site. On goal-​oriented web­sites, it might even make sense to not ad­ver­ti­se at all, given our fin­dings. Se­cond, browsing-​oriented web­sites should make sure that ad viewa­bi­li­ty is high, as ad­ver­ti­sers may see hig­her ad ef­fec­ti­ve­n­ess when their ads are more viewa­ble. Third, they can also char­ge hig­her CPM for those ad im­pres­si­ons be­cau­se ad­ver­ti­sers see a hig­her “re­turn” from them. Fourth, goal-​oriented web­sites might want to rethink what type of ads they offer on their web­sites, as users are there to ful­fill a spe­ci­fic goal and are less re­cep­ti­ve to (dis­play) ads in ge­ne­ral.