Viewability has quickly become one of the most important metrics in digital advertising. High viewability is key in driving up revenue, and ensures that your demand partners want to spend money on your inventory. Demand partners are no longer paying for non-viewable ads. If your ads aren’t viewable, you won’t gain revenue from them. Viewability technology ensures that an ad isn’t automatically loading at the bottom of a page, never to be seen by a living, breathing human, and therefore not making your money. But viewability only tells part of the story. Focusing on engagement brings even more value—increasing revenue and offering a deeper understanding of your reader’s interests.
1. The combination of viewability and engagement gives you a glimpse into the world of your reader. It may not always be easy to understand your reader’s interests. By tracking page engagement, you get a unique view of your user’s activity, including mouse movement, page scrolls, and when they move from one tab to another. Tracking engagement can tell you when someone is reading your content, and helps you measure the value of that content. It’s likely that reader analytics are a key part of your business strategy already, and understanding engagement can help you curate more of the content that keeps your readers coming back.
2. Tracking user engagement creates more inventory when you know a reader is there to see it. You’ve built an engaged audience that loves your content. They’re reading and scrolling and spending time on your page. When your user engagement is high and an ad is more than 51% in view, your ad unit value drastically increases, and you can reload existing ad zones to create new inventory on your page. This gives your reader a more pleasant user experience while letting you earn more with fewer ads units.
3. Below the fold is cool, too. In a recent study, user engagement was found to be up to 9x higher on ads below the fold. That’s because you’ve drawn your reader in with your content, and they’ve now become your most engaged user. That engagement means a higher likelihood that an advertiser’s targeted ad will resonate with your reader. Tools that track engagement not only equip you to monetize reader interest, but also give you clear metrics on how interested your audience really is in your content. This also shows that reloading ads below the fold is a powerful revenue tool.
While ad viewability is absolutely key in generating revenue, your user engagement is just as important, if not more. Tracking engagement brings all the elements of your business together and helps you understand what your reader is looking for in your content, when they navigate on and off your page, and how to best monetize your hard work. By leveraging the relationship between viewability and user engagement, you create a better experience for your audience, and you grow more revenue to continue to build your business.
Looking for more information on tracking user engagement? Check out our episode of the eMarketer podcast, Behind the Numbers, or get in touch.
