How Infor increased the Viewability by 54% using Lazy Load technology?
Infor Group, the owner of such titles as GazetaPrawna.pl or Forsal.pl, is one of the most recognizable media groups in Poland. The popularity of the Group’s titles coupled with the high quality of these titles’ authorial industry-specialist content means that the Publisher’s potential for generating revenue in the Open Market and Programmatic Deals could be described as above-average. However, obtaining the maximum possible results in terms of monetization, has been a challenge because of the low Ad Viewability indicators, i.e. the measure that determines what percentage of ad views is broadcast on the monitor, i.e. in the user’s field of view.
challenge
Ad Viewability is currently regarded as one of the key advertising indicators, and is strongly related to the effectiveness of advertising activities. Explaining this concept in a very intuitive way, an advertisement that the user has not had the opportunity to look at will not persuade the same user to take action; or to even remember the brand that has been presented. And so, the standards introduced by IAB precisely define the desired time of ad viewability and how much of the creative should be visible.
For display formats, it is assumed that at least 50% of the creative should be present in the user’s field of view for one second. The video format is already two seconds (and also 50% of the creation on the screen).
Adjusting ad stack to IAB requirements in this area requires the linking up of various teams – it is good for the project team to include people with knowledge of UX and building ad layouts, experts in the field of Yield Management responsible for performance, as well as AdOps and Development support – such changes often entail technical reorganization.
Aiming to improve Infor’s Viewability inventory, and supporting the Publisher in their Yield Management, our Yieldbird team created and conducted adjustment scenario.
Solution
Most of the website traffic reads articles, so based on several years of experience, the Yieldbird team at an early stage of diagnostics proposed a configuration of the lazy load mechanism – this is a script introduced into the website code that causes ad units (or other website elements indicated by the script) to not load as soon as the website is opened by the user, and to load only when the part of the website in which they are located is in the user’s field of view (on the screen). Such a mechanism is able to positively impact on Viewability within a short period of time.
The specificity of large publishing groups is often related to the large amount of time needed to implement changes on the developer side, especially when changes in the advertising network have been accepted in advance by the editorial team.
Yieldbird decided to conduct a test on one website, where, due to the current technical condition, the implementation and optimization of the lazy load script could take place in the shortest time. The parameterizational effects were noticeable right after the modifications, which allowed the project to be quickly scaled to the rest of Infor’s inventory.
When implementing the lazy load technology, it should be remembered that better Viewability does not always guarantee higher revenues.
In the case of Infor, we saw a situation where the loss of advertising demands was not covered by higher demand for space – so higher Open Market VA and eCPM did not result in revenue growth.
This is an effect that happens to News Publishers – the demand for space tends to be less correlated with its quality, and more with the theme of the website. For this reason, the actions were analysed per domain, and on that basis the final decisions were made: with or without lazy load (or perhaps for selected units).
Julia Boczulińska,
Senior Customer Performance Analyst @Yieldbird
Ad Viewability is one of the most important quality metrics, but Publishers should not only make recourse to this indicator. After all, the main goal that Publishers aim to achieve by way of cooperation with Yieldbird is to increase revenue. Nevertheless, it is good practice to look at revenue beyond CPM. One of the most popular KPIs chosen by Publishers is the Revenue / Page View, which best reflects the effect of activities carried out on the website in terms of optimization, and the use of new products, formats or technologies. Revenue / Page View is closely related to other indicators such as the number of Ad Requests / Page Views or Revenue / Sessions.
For Publishers the approach they take is often an individual one; and at various stages of our cooperation, the KPIs that we look to achieve may be subject to change.
Certainly, at an early stage, after having analysed your inventory, we at Yieldbird will advise you on where the focus should be. What is more, we will develop an action plan and oversee the kinds of changes guaranteed to deliver better results.
Vadym Kriuchok,
Customer Success Manager @ Yieldbird
Viewability Uplift
Open Market eCPM uplift
As a large media group, we strive to ensure that results from the monetization of websites are the result of a well-thought-out strategy, and not some random series of activities.
Working with Yieldbird, we appreciate that as our partner they keep their finger on the pulse and endeavour to ensure that the key parameters for Advertisers (e.g. Viewability) remain above the expected standards. At the same time, we are pleased that Yieldbird has implemented improvements that are in keeping with the specifics of our inventory, and has introduced changes that accord with the character of individual sites.
– Robert Głodek, Deputy Director of Online @ Infor Biznes