Facebook announced the launching of a new ad-buying option designed for advertisers who are willing to pay only for those ads that are seen by users.
The new option, which guarantees the ad's viewability rate of 100 percent, will allow advertisers to pay for ad impressions that pass through the user's News Feed as a full top to bottom screen ad. The feature would cover each ad format such as link, photo, text and video ads.
In recent months, Facebook came under strong scrutiny by ad buyers who are concerned on the way they pay for video ads. The company would instantly charge for a video ad impression that appears on the screen in an in-view visibility wherein a portion of the video would play on the screen for a matter of three seconds or more. This also seemed true even if the ad just started to play silently while the page is being scrolled.
Facebook, however, also offers advertisers the 10-second video ad option where they only pay for a video ad that has been viewed within 10 seconds or more.
Ad viewability is now one of the hottest issues being faced by advertisers and publishers. The greatest concern is that while people can see the ads, there are those that appear only on certain parts of the page which may potentially be left unseen by the user. However, even though these ads are not viewed, advertisers are still obliged to pay for them.
The new feature will now allow advertisers to pay for their ads when the full ad unit is viewable on the users' screen.
"While it remains our belief that value is created for an advertiser as soon as an ad is in view, we also believe in offering advertisers control and flexibility over how they run their ads. So to give advertisers more choice and control, we're introducing a new buying option that allows advertisers to purchase 100 percent in-view impression on Facebook," the company wrote in a blog post.
Facebook also announced its partnership with Moat, an analytics company. Moat will act as a third party that will provide marketers the data they need to let them know about the performance of their video ads in Facebook. The company will verify video ad views and identify the length of time it takes users to view the ads.
Rob Norman, chief digital officer of ad-buying company GroupM Worldwide expressed his thoughts on Facebook's recent announcements.
"What we want is quite simple: Ads that are actually seen by real people."
Users can expect to see Facebook ads in more viewable formats once the feature comes in full swing.
Photo: Bernard Goldbach I Flickr
