Digital advertisers says viewability is the biggest challenge for 2015

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing digital publishing in 2015?

Would it be “viewability”?

In a recent survey by The 614 Group and AdMonsters, not only did 63% of advertisers said viewability was their greatest challenge, the majority also said they thought high viewability was a pipe dream.

Earlier this month, the IAB released a statement saying that it was unreasonable to expect 100% viewability. They thought 75% was a more realistic number.

In the 614 Group survey, more than 60% of respondents said they weren’t expecting to see high viewability numbers in 2015, so at least they won’t be disappointed.

What’s more interesting to me is that only 26% of advertisers said Ad Fraud was going to be the biggest challenge in 2015. This is not to say they think the situation has improved. The respondents were almost equally divided on the topic of whether or not ad fraud would drop in 2015. That tells me that we’ve simply learned to accept ad fraud as a part of doing digital business.

2015 Trends

81% of respondents said that programmatic buying and selling of digital ads was responsible for the growth we saw this past year. But an almost equal number say there’s still a lot of work to be done. If you’re not sure exactly what “programmatic” is, join the club and then read this delightful explanation from Digiday.

Native Advertising was a hot topic for 2014 but advertisers aren’t sure that it’s the ad unit of the future. There was mixed feelings about the value of native ads and whether they’re better than standard ad units. Only 30% thought native ads would be “very pervasive” in 2015 with the majority choosing “somewhat”.

Part of the issue is a lack of agreement about what native advertising is and isn’t. Branded content that’s delivered as you’d deliver any other piece of content can be very effective. Branded content that ambushes readers, by tricking them into opening banners or trigger content that appears native, is aggravating and is more likely to drive customers away.

The one thing all of the advertisers did agree on, is that there’s still room for improvement. The way we access the internet has changed, the tools we used to collect data have changed and our perceptions about what’s private and what’s not has also changed. If you’re still trying to reach customers in 2015 with the same techniques you used in 2007, it’s time for you to change your methods, too.

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