Mobile video ads achieve up to 88% in viewability rates, but ad fraud still an issue

Video ad impressions reached higher viewability rates (76% and more) than display (66% and more) during the first half of 2022, according to the latest Media Quality Report from Integral Ad Science (IAS).

Across Europe, Italy had the highest viewability rate for video ads at 88% on mobile. 

The study also found that brand risk in digital and mobile ads dropped during H1 2022 compared to the previous year, remaining below 2.5% globally. Display and video ads on desktop were safer than on mobile at 1.6% versus 2.4%, respectively.

Despite these improvements, Germany (4.3%) and France (3.7%) reported the highest levels of brand risk for video ads on mobile.

IAS considers adult, alcohol, hate speech, illegal downloads and drugs, offensive language and controversial content and violence as unsafe content. 

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The percentage of content related to violence doubled from 2021 increasing from 24.9% to 47.9% for display impressions and from 24.3% to 45.6% for video impressions. 

Csaba Szabo, Managing Director, EMEA, Integral Ad Science, said:

“It’s highly significant that brand risk has decreased globally, even under geopolitical upheaval and severe economic challenges. It is a testament to the robustness of context-based and pre-bid brand safety solutions that advertisers employ.”

“However, we live in a time of unpredictability, and the Media Quality Report highlights the importance of ad campaigns that hold consumers’ attention. Advertisers must ensure that their spend is as effective as possible, and optimising for attention will remain a key metric.”

Time-in-view levels for display ads remained on par with those of the previous year (14.5 seconds for mobile web and 17.7 seconds for mobile in-app). 

Overall, ad completion for video ads was much higher at 73.8% on mobile web. 

However, ad fraud continues to increase with desktop levels generally higher than mobile (1.4% versus 0.5%, respectively). 

Germany saw some of the highest rates of ad fraud at 1.9% across mobile environments.