What are the Best Ways to Increase Mobile Viewability?

‘Viewability ’ is quite tricky. Even though the underlying principle seems simple (Viewable Ads drive better ROI and UX), it is hard for publishers to increase it across the site.

A lot of factors impact your ad viewability and it isn’t possible to leave any of them to solve the viewability equation. That being said, it’s quite easy to sustain the best practices once you’re done with the initial groundwork.

Ad Sizes

Based on the study by Google, the size of the ads has a severe influence on viewability. The research shows that the most viewable ad size is the vertical unit.

Most viewable ad units:

Page arrangement

Ads that are placed exactly above the fold are largely viewable while those located at the top of the page have less viewability.

Having said this, ads above the fold have a median viewability of 68% and those below the fold had an average viewability of 40%. We do insist on taking this metric not so seriously. Why? If your content is engaging, users will eventually scroll down to read more. Hence, BTF ads might be getting almost the same percentage of viewability as ATF ads.

Stickiness

Nowadays publishers are repeatedly interested in employing a fixed placement, or position so that the ads can stay within a selected area of the page even when the user scrolls down the page. This implementation or method is known as Sticky Ads.

Lazy Loading:

While lazy loading ads can increase ad viewability, it is necessary to consider your goal. Because lazy loading can decrease the volume of ad impressions. So, you’ll be delivering less impressions overall, unless your users scroll the pages down to the footer every time. 

Ad speed is another factor to consider. We discussed more actionable strategies and implementations here.