Metrics that Matter: The New Viewability Standards for Mobile Video
Updated July 2, 2019
Learn More About AVOC And Other Viewability Benchmarks
Video consumption on mobile devices, specifically smartphones, has exploded over recent years. Nowadays, adults are spending over 1.5 times more media time on mobile devices than on their desktops. Specifically, around
90% of the time spent on smartphones occurs within apps, not on the mobile browser.
Interested in learning more about mobile video advertising and other in-app creative opportunities? Reach out today to learn more.
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While industry spend still lingers heavily in mobile browser-based ads, brands are quickly shifting focus to meet users where they are with in-app video advertisements.
By embracing video that is built for the mobile device and also the behavior of a mobile user, advertisers can achieve superior performance that only video can deliver.
But measuring beyond a viewable impression is crucial to know if your ad is being seen, heard and completed by a human. You must understand how these metrics combine to tell a complete story on your overall mobile video performance.
Read more: Learn how an MRC-accredited solution such as an SDK integration allows for greater in-app measurement and better mobile performance.
Traditional industry metrics that matter for mobile ads have included:
- View-through rate
- Completion rate
- Quartile completion rates
- Cost per mille (CPM)
But new standards allow us to take a deeper dive into the performance of our ad campaigns. So in this post, we’ll show you an expanded set of mobile app viewability metrics to ensure human engagement with your ad investments.
An expanded set of mobile app metrics for video viewability benchmarks
Moat, the third-party verification partner for mobile ads, frequently releases its benchmarks for video viewability. They can point us to a standard to measure campaigns against — however, with the right mobile-first practices, you can double many of these metrics, as we’ll discuss.
The top metrics that matter include:
- Human and viewable rate: Is your ad visible and seen by a human? Viewability is fundamental to ad efficacy. For video analytics, Moat follows the IAB guidelines to track video viewable impressions, requiring that at least 50% of the pixels of the player must be visible on-screen, and the ad must be playing for at least two continuous seconds.
Benchmark: While the industry average for human and viewable rate for in-app mobile video is around 50%, InMobi's is often nearly double that at over 90% in some quarters.
- Audible and visible on complete (AVOC): Often, ads are seen but not heard. AVOC is a measurement of the percentage of impressions where the ad was visible and audible on completion and delivered to a human.
Benchmark: According to Moat, the AVOC industry average is around 25%, yet with the right ad standards in place, the benchmark for ads run with InMobi often reach or exceed 38% AVOC.
- Invalid traffic (IVT): IVT is the percentage of total unfiltered impressions delivered to a non-human endpoint. This may include General IVT (Spiders, Excessive Activity, and/or Data Center Traffic categories) and Sophisticated IVT (Invalid Proxy, Automated Browser, and/or Incongruous Browser Traffic categories).
Benchmark: The industry average for IVT is 0around.5%, and InMobi sees less invalid traffic at only 0.18% or even less.
- Video completion quality score: This metric describes the percentage of video completions that were both visible and audible. It can be calculated as Audible and Visible on Complete Rate divided by Reached Complete Rate.
Benchmark: While the quality completion score for the industry has been approximately 46.1%, InMobi's has been 56% or higher.
- Moat video score: Moat video score, or MVS, is a video ad score ranging from 0 to 100. It benchmarks the sound, motion and sight aspects of a video. The score is based on the average percentage of the video that was audible and/or visible, amplified by the screen real estate. It assesses the quality of different video ad exposures on mobile and desktop devices.
Benchmark: The average Moat score for the industry is around 50%, while InMobi's has been above 5%. Furthermore, the average MVS for in-app video is 3x that of mobile web video, proving the quality of in-app mobile video investments.
By utilizing the right metrics, and the right analytic capabilities to measure them, brands and media buyers can determine how to improve their mobile in-app video ads and ensure they reach their audiences on the small screen. Therefore, invest in an ad network that allows you to activate viewability metrics on in-app advertisement campaigns at scale.
Read More: InMobi partners with The Trade Desk to deliver more transparent and reliable in-app metrics — read the press release.
