Viewability, or the visibility of an advertisement, is one of the key parameters that determine the effectiveness of on-line advertising. The two most common indicators used to measure viewability are the viewability rate, which is the percentage of ad page views that are displayed to a user in a browser window, and viewability time, which is the average time they are visible to the user. Gemius checked what these indicators look like for video, display, and text ads. It also analysed what viewability parameters were generated by ads on social media (social), other websites (standard), and how long Internet users, using personal computers and laptops, were engaged.

Graphics displayed the longest

Display advertisements on the Ukrainian net rank the highest among all formats in terms of the duration of time spent in the viewable area of Internet users (viewability time) which, in this case, averages 14.12 seconds. For graphic ads on social media, this indicator is 14.88 seconds, and for display advertisements on other websites, it is 14.06 seconds. Viewability rate data show that two thirds (66 per cent) of display advertisements on social media were displayed in the user’s view, while on other websites this was more than half of the displays – 56 per cent.

Videos are best visible

Video ads stand out from other formats in terms of the share of displays in the user’s view – as high as 74 per cent. The viewability rate for video ads displayed on social media was 84 per cent, and on other websites it was 73 per cent. The average duration of engagement with the advertisements was 12.75 seconds. For social media it was 11.21 seconds, and on other websites it was 12.88 seconds.

Text strong on social

Although a total of 48 per cent of text ad views were in the user’s view and the duration of the views (9.79 seconds) was lower than with the other formats, of all the ad types displayed on social media, they have a slightly higher viewability rate than graphic advertisements (68 per cent for text advertisements compared to 66 per cent for graphic advertisements) and stay longer in the user’s view than video ads (11.54 seconds for text ads, 11.21 seconds for video ads). For ads displayed on other websites, these indicators are 47 per cent and 10.53 seconds respectively.

Gemius uses IAB standards to evaluate viewability, according to which, ads are considered to be visible when 50 per cent of the is located within the user’s view for more than 1 second. In case of video ads, 50 per cent of the pixels must be located within the user’s view for a minimum of 2 seconds for advertising videos.

Gemius analysed data from October 2017, collected from Ukrainian Internet users, using desktops and laptops, aged 14–69.