One of the biggest problems many companies have with investing in digital advertising is that there is so much potential for fraud or ineffective displays. It seems like every day there is a new report that shows that a high percentage of ads are never actually seen by real people. Part of that comes from the positioning of the ads. For example, an ad on the footer of a page is unlikely to ever be seen by the person browsing the page.
This issue is even worse on mobile devices, since people often zoom specifically to the areas they are interested in. They are unlikely to ever see ads that aren’t positioned perfectly. To address this problem, Facebook is working with Media Rating Council and other groups to develop standards for displaying ads on smart phones and tablets. These standards would make it much easier to sell ad space, because it would be possible to guarantee visibility rates.
In addition, it would give publishers more ability to negotiate, since they can show exactly how often an ad is going to be seen. If done properly, this will help ensure more people will see the ads, which can make it possible for marketing managers from major companies to confidently move ad dollars from mediums like television over to the digital realm.
There is no word on when this set of standards will be completed, or even what it will look like in the final form, however. At this point, it is in the early stages and it seems both Facebook and MRC want to make sure they get it right the first time.
Adam Shlachter, the CIO of DigitasLBi (who is also working on this project) said, “It’s a tremendous opportunity to get it right from the get-go and an opportunity we don’t want to miss given how much focus is put on getting mobile right.” He continued on to say, “It would be a huge miss not to tackle it.”
At these early stages, it seems that all the right companies are involved, which can help ensure it is a success. In addition to Facebook there are over 150 other members such as Google, Yahoo, NBC and more.
When these companies begin to adopt the standard in practice, it will be a major push for other mobile heavy companies to follow suit. Facebook reports that they have already put together and analyzed data from over 12 billion desktop ad impressions from their news feed. This will help them to make informed decisions on things like how much of the ad must be visible to the visitor, and how long they must see it in order to count it as a displayed ad.
