Dive Brief:
- The Guardian is taking online ad viewability to another level with its new time-based ad units, according to Digiday.
- Advertisers can buy ads in 10, 15, 20 or 30 second time slots, for which the Guardian guarantees 100% viewability.
- The Guardian's idea is to improve the user experience by offering fewer and better ads, offering advertisers more value by giving viewers more reason to pay attention to the ads they are served.
Dive Insight:
In an online advertising ecosystem beset by the growing adoption of ad blockers, publishers and advertisers are struggling to figure out the best way forward. For the Guardian, the path forward is about providing the user with a better advertising experience — the primary reason many consumers adopt ad blocking software in the first place — and provide advertisers with more effective ad units.
“It’s part of our fewer, better ads strategy, and it develops our thinking that not all ad impressions are the same,” Nick Hewat, commercial director at the Guardian, told Digiday. “This isn’t a one-off problem solver; it’s part of an ongoing objective to deliver more tangible results for our clients.”
While ad blocking technology has become a major threat to online publishers, improving the user experience is one fix that most industry insiders agree on. The Guardian joins the Financial Times and the Economist in charging advertisers on a viewability basis, rather than just for impressions.