1getAA ‘viewable impression’ is a metric, measuring which ads were actually viewable when served. The definition of a ‘viewable impression’ may depend on the type of the ad units and the reporting system.

Viewable impressions were developed as an improvement of the online impression metric, which has been measured since the mid-1990s. In general, online impressions analyze HTTP requests in a server log and cannot provide information on events fired by a viewer’s browser; thus, they cannot measure whether ad content was actually visible to a viewer.

C3Metrics1According to RealVu, the first company to develop this new technology in 2010, the ‘viewable impression’ (CPMv) is well on the way to becoming the standard for online advertising base measurement of exposure.

While verification companies report on viewable percentages of ads already served to web pages, the RealVu Marketplace is built on a proprietary ad serving platform that actually determines if an ad space is viewable before the ad is requested.

Then, based on a number of parameters - including viewabilty, contextual, geographic and behavioral targets - RealVu serves the display advertising. Thanks to them, advertisers can buy targeted CPMv campaigns and pay only for ‘viewable impressions’, getting up to 10 times the exposure and response than CPM campaigns.

The viewable impression advisory, by the Media Rating Council, makes it clear that cross domain iFrames pose a large obstacle to measuring viewability.

C3 Metrics offers a solution to this issue of cross-domain iFrames. The company claims to have the most advanced viewable impression technology available. The patent-pending technology measures every impression, works in all major browsers, deploys instantly and is certified for all major networks and publishers.

C3Metrics2Cookies are dropped with every ad, whether anyone saw it or not. Unfortunately, since view-through conversions are cookie-based, ads which are never seen are receiving conversion credit - defeating the very purpose of viewable impressions.

Viewable conversions take real-time viewable impression data and feed it directly to the C3 conversion gatekeeper, so that only display ads viewed are eligible for conversion credit.

According to C3Metrics.com, this certified technology works with the customer’s ad server or that of media partners, and it is actually integrated in minutes with the majority of ad servers.

For some more interesting facts and figures, regarding viewable impressions, have a look at the infographic made by scroll.com:

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By Anjum Siddiqi