Apparently digital marketers have been using the wrong metric to measure the effectiveness of their mobile campaignsOpens a new window , according to a new study by mobile-only advertising firm Kargo.
Indeed, the company found that viewability — which tracks when an ad unit has been ‘on-screen’ for a certain amount of time or longer (meaning that it has done its job) — doesn’t actually signify much about a mobile ad’s performance as a standalone piece of data.
The company’s reportOpens a new window revealed that ad viewability, traditionally considered the de-facto KPI for measuring the success of a mobile ad, in fact doesn’t correlate to its memorability — for example, its recall rate by consumers — on mobile formats.
The research, disclosed publicly at Advertising Week in New York City, analyzed ad performance across four platforms — gaming apps, desktop, mobile and Instagram — finding that simply because an ad has better viewing rates doesn’t mean consumers are actually registering its content.
Using eye-tracking technology on consumers looking at ads on various devices and platforms, Kargo discovered that the easiest-to-view ads often had the smallest impact on consumer recall rates.
While this revelation may not seem particularly significant, it actually carries major implications.
Many marketers focus on viewability as a performance metric on mobile since the Media Rating Council established viewability standards. That means that ad placement visibility has been a priority for the sector.
The current issue: We’re realizing that mobile viewability statistics on their own actually are misleading, while ad visibility doesn’t necessarily improve user engagement.
Rather, as Robert Williams writes for Mobile MarketerOpens a new window , “Kargo’s study found that…mobile marketers need to consider other factors such as the ad platform, format, size and creative in developing a mobile ad strategy.â€
Key findings of the report
The study presented the following key insights:
Large-format, in-article ads and Instagram ads are most effective, while mobile pinned ads aren’t far behind.
On mobile, although Instagram ads are only seen 1.9% of the time during a user session, they have an estimated viewability of about 50% and recall rate of 20%. These results mean ads on the social media app are 8.3 times more effective than gaming platforms and 5.4 times more than desktop, with 77% of study participants looking at an ad at some point during their session.
Per Kargo, Instagram ads and large-format, in-article ads tie for top spot regarding ad effectiveness, with both ad formats registering a score of 10.8%. Despite large-format, in-article campaigns also having a relatively low share of sessions, with consumers seeing them 4.1% of the time, they also have a 50% viewability rate and are easier to remember than any other type of mobile ad.
Mobile pinned ads, meanwhile, came in third for ad effectiveness at 3.9%.
In-app gaming banner ads and desktop banners: High visibility but rarely paid attention to.
Kargo’s findings on large-format, in-article and Instagram ads are especially important when coupled with the company’s conclusions on in-app gaming banner and desktop sidebar banner ads.
Apparently, in-app game banners are some of the most visible (90% viewability), yet they’re seldom registered by consumers, resulting in just 1.3% ad effectiveness. Similarly, although sidebar banners on desktop have an 80% viewability rate, they were almost never looked at despite being in-view — results representing 2% ad effectiveness.
In all, recall for these ads was surprisingly low, with participants agreeing that the brands and products that were advertised had little to no lasting impression.
Why marketers should care
Marketers have regarded viewability as the most revealing indication of a mobile ad’s performance.
Kargo now challenges that long-held assumption. As Kargo President and COO Ryan McConville explained in the session he led at Advertising Week, “vieawability alone doesn’t seem to capture whether an ad had a lasting effect on the consumer. It might have been in-view, but that doesn’t mean it was easily visible or memorable to a consumer.â€
And, ultimately, an ad’s memorability matters most as  the key factor persuading consumers to act on your marketing messages: whether to engage with your brand on social media or get them to enquire about, or even pay for, your service(s) or product(s).
Marketers need to reassess their priorities when deciding which aspects of their mobile campaign performance to study. Instead of asking, ‘how visible will my ad be?’, we should be identifying ‘which ad format will complement my ad and help it stand out and be memorable to digital audiences?’
For instance, when formatted to smaller smartphone screens, larger ad formats may be less visible, but those ad units nevertheless produce strong recall rates.
As with all things digital marketing, this is a lesson to all of us: using a single, standalone KPI as a measurement of a campaign’s success is rarely – if ever – a good idea.