Content Viewability Health Check: Simple Goals For Maximizing Revenue

For as long as we can remember, we’ve stressed to our publishers that the key to success with Mediavine, and programmatic advertising in general, is viewability.

As its name implies, viewability means that your ads are seen by readers, giving advertisers the performance they need to pay a premium for your inventory.

We’ve touched on this topic approximately 700 times (here’s a good guide to ad viewability), but today, we’re excited to talk not just viewability, but specific viewability goals.

For the first time ever!

That’s right, with the goal of helping publishers better monitor and improve viewability, we’re launching our first new health check in years: the Content Viewability health checks.

Much like their In-Content Ad health check cousins, the Content Viewability Health Checks come as a pair: Mobile and Desktop, each with their own goals.

Content Viewability vs. Site-Wide Viewability

Mediavine prides itself on high viewability scores, with our sticky sidebar and adhesion units playing a major role.

Both the sticky sidebar and adhesion units “stick” with users as they scroll through a page, nearly guaranteeing highly-viewable ads.

That’s a good thing, right?

Absolutely, but the downside is that these sticky units significantly skew site-wide viewability scores to appear better than they truly are.

How do we accurately measure viewability where publishers can most move the needle? With Mediavine’s new Content Viewability Health Check.

By measuring viewability from in-content units, recipe cards and feeds, while no longer factoring in adhesion or sticky sidebar ads, Content Viewability offers the most accurate gauge.

Introducing Content Viewability Goals

During this initial launch, we’re starting with ambitious goals for content viewability. Here’s what percentage you need to Go For Teal on mobile and desktop:

Mobile

• Teal: ≥ 65%
• Green: ≥ 60%
• Yellow: ≥ 50%
• Red: < 50%

Desktop

• Teal: ≥ 70%
• Green: ≥ 65%
• Yellow: ≥ 55%
• Red: < 55%

Yes, we know these are ambitious numbers. More than a few publishers who were well-optimized / all teal prior to these new health checks may suddenly see green dots ruining their perfect record.

But that’s a good thing.

Your website is more than just five data points. The more health checks we add, the easier it is to paint the most accurate picture of your site’s performance.

Even if your scores aren’t what you want to see this instant, these new health checks are a tool to help improve earning potential. So how do you do that?

Glad you asked!

How to Improve Content Viewability

First, you may have noticed that these new health checks launched shortly after Mediavine’s latest viewability solution – InView.

That’s no coincidence. By far and away the easiest way to boost viewability across the board is to enable InView on both Desktop and Mobile.

Within a few days, publishers see an 8.22% improvement on their mobile health checks and 6.57% on desktop, on average, after switching on InView.

This alone is likely enough to move a lot of you from green to teal, just by pressing one button. But remember, not all viewability improvements are just a click away.

In order to absolutely optimize your site for viewability and the revenue that comes with it, we recommend a deep dive into how users consume your content.

For instance, if users on your recipe blog often skip your content and head right to the recipe, make sure you run a recipe card like Create and use our recommended recipe ad optimizations.

That’s just one of many examples and solutions, but you get the idea. We have lots of great tips for improving page speed, content performance and beyond in our viewability help article.

(Health) Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

Again, if you see a dip in scores that you’re not happy with, remember that we’re not trying to make life difficult with these health checks. This is a good thing.

Viewability truly is one of the best measurable indicators of how well your ads will perform for advertisers, and it’s important to be as accurate as possible.

Adding this health check is meant to give you more insights into your site’s performance, so that you can position yourself for short- and long-term success.

Mediavine publishers already lead the pack in viewability. Thanks to these health checks and new technology like InView, our publishers will set the bar even higher.