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Viewability checks
 

Visible ads with visible effects: How Yandex counts video and display impressions

The quality of users' contact with ads directly depends on whether they actually had the opportunity to view the banner or video along with the time to understand the gist of the offer. Yandex adheres to strict viewability standards, so we can ensure advertisers that they only pay for high-quality contacts with display ads.

How Yandex counts ad impressions

For display banners and video ads, we use strict visibility check technology based on international MRC standards. A impression is considered high-quality and counted if all the following conditions are met:

The user must have a chance to view the banner or clip.

  • This means that the visible area of the screen must feature at least 50% of the area of the banner or player (at least 30% of the area for banners with an area of more than 242 500 pixels, i.e. 970×250).
  • Video ad impressions will be counter if the player size is determined to be at least 320×180 or 180×320 pixels, and when displayed in in-app format, at least 300×160 or 160×300**. Video ads are not shown in smaller players. This is an additional requirement implemented by Yandex.
  • It is the the visibility of the banner or player on the site that we take into account, not that of the the ad block. For example, if the visible area of the screen shows 50% of the ad block of the site, but the banner or player actually occupies just 48%, then the impressions will not be counted.

The user must have enough time to understand the essence of the offer.

  • Users need time to understand the ad’s message and click on the banner or video. Therefore, the ad block must be in the visible area of the screen for at least a second (at least 2 seconds for a video player).
  • The specified time for banner and video ad impressions must be continuous so that the user has time to engage with the advertising offer. If, during the time a user views an banner or video ad, the ad goes out of view for more than 100 milliseconds and then returns, we reset the count of the display time to zero.

Moreover, if a user clicked on a banner or video before the conditions described above were fulfilled, we will not count this impression as valid. And if the impression is not counted, then neither will the click. This allows us to ensure that our advertisers only pay for high-quality impressions and only see high-quality clicks in their statistics.

These strict viewability checks are used in Yandex auctions for all video and display ad blocks without exceptions, and are applied to the sites of Yandex projects as well as partner sites in the Yandex Advertising Network.

How viewability checks work

Banner ads are placed on Yandex services pages and partner sites using a special code which collects detailed data showing how the user interacts with the page in the browser. The system then compares the data with the viewability criteria and judges whether to consider the impression valid.

* MRC Viewable Ad Impression Measurement Guidelines Version 2.0 — the most authoritative standard describing viewable impressions. It was developed in August of 2015 by the IAB professional association of media publishers, agreed with the professional association of American advertisers 4A and the ANA agencies, approved by the Media Rating Council (MRC), the organization that regulates all media measurements in the United States.

** When displaying video ads in mobile apps, the minimum player size is set to 300×160 or 160×300 depending on the orientation of the screen, not 320×180 as on desktops. This difference is necessary in order to support various aspect ratios of the screen of popular smartphone models.

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