GroupM forges deal to guarantee viewable impressions with key Australia publishers

From Q1, GroupM will trade with key Australian publishers based on guaranteed levels of viewability across their sites.

The IAB’s current global standard for viewability is 50 percent in view for one second for display ads and 50 percent in view for two seconds for video. The terms of GroupM’s new agreement with Australian publishers guarantees that display and video ads will be 100 percent in view on key placements, or the advertiser will not pay. Major publishers who have agreed to the standard include Ninemsn, Fairfax, News Digital, Yahoo, Guardian, Mamamia, MCN, Inmobi & Carsguide.

This move in Australia follows the precedent set by GroupM in USA who have taken a similar position with publishers in regards viewability.

Says John Miskelly (pictured), chief digital officer, GroupM: “Rightfully, confidence in digital advertising has been knocked over the last year due to issues such as brand safety, ad fraud and viewability. GroupM’s goal is to ensure the absolute best digital advertising for our agencies’ clients. We took this position above the industry standard both to achieve that goal and to help restore faith in the medium. Locally, we have been analysing around 2.5 billion lines of viewability data a month for the last 1.5 years and have been working with key publishers to share insights into their performance as well as with our global team to get to this standard.”

The move also sees GroupM partner with verification partner Moat to track viewability as well as brand safety and ad fraud.

Says Timothy Whitfield, director of technical operations, GroupM: “It’s important to work with a trusted partner for verification of viewability and we have this in Moat who provides these services globally. Their vision and capabilities for enhancing brand safety, ensuring viewability and reducing, ad-fraud aligns with GroupM’s goals. They have a direct integration with Facebook, YouTube & Twitter and are the first vendor to be MRC accredited for mobile viewability. We are deploying their technology at scale in Q1 2016 and directly integrating their solution with our internal systems at GroupM. This will allow us to have an unparalleled overview of brand safety, ad-fraud and viewability for all clients. This deep insight into the data will give or clients, yet another, unfair advantage to further boost the performance of all their campaigns.”

Says Jonah Goodhart, co-founder and CEO of Moat: “GroupM is the largest media buyer in the Australian market and we are honoured to be selected as their partner of choice. We are excited to support their clients with an Australian-based team and we look forward to broadening our presence in the region.”