Why Viewable Impressions are Important?

As a business owner, you understand the importance of fully integrating your website, social media accounts, and online advertising into one marketing platform. While you may sell some of your products locally, the internet holds the true potential for your company to flourish. Due to this, you likely are continually looking for new ways of marketing your brand, bringing in new clients and how to improve a return on your marketing investment. One such trending marketing importance over the years is “viewable impression.” Now, anyone who is new to the marketing game may wonder what exactly this is. Once explained, it is possible to understand not only what it is, but what exactly it is able to do and why it is so important. 

What is a Viewable Impression?

The Google definition of an impression (and Google is really the end all be all when it comes to this, as more internet searches are performed using Google than all other search engines combined) is a viewable impression when the content has appeared on a visitor’s internet browser and the person had the opportunity to see the content. This means the website, ad or other information fully loaded onto the website. If someone clicked on a link and then hit the “Back” button to move out, it doesn’t count as a viewable impression.

Now, simply loading on a computer screen does not mean it is viewable either. In the world of online advertisements, there are ads that are “below the fold.” This is a term taken from the newspaper industry and incorporated into online marketing. In the newspaper industry, below the fold means exactly what it sounds like. It is anything under the fold in the middle of the paper. The main story is above the fold and the major headline.

Anything under the fold, while still on the front page, receives less attention. In the internet world, anything under the fold means a visitor to the website needs to scroll down from the viewable content that appears on the screen when it first loads. The main information appears once the website loads, and while the other content may be on the home or “Main” screen, a person still needs to scroll down, which in turn reduces the number of viewable impressions the content under the fold receives. If an ad appears below the fold and a visitor does not scroll down to see it, often times this is not considered a viewable impression, as the person did not actually see it. 

Why is a Viewable Impression Important?

Now, you may have never worked for the newspaper industry, but many of the current terms associated with impressions, visibility, and above the fold come directly from this form of print journalism. It is important to follow suit and identify ways to boost impressions and monitor these impressions. Some websites are going to showcase how many “impressions” an ad might provide. The problem with this is the impression might have never actually been seen, so what is the point? It’s basically like paying for a television commercial and the viewer’s television is off. It does no good at all.

View-ability data is able to increase the value of any display inventory, regardless of what the ad or viewable information is for. Viewable impression information is far more valuable than just an impression statistic. When you first opened your business, you likely grew in excitement with the produce views you received and the number of impressions it earned through a marketing platform. However, impression only data doesn’t always equal sales. In fact, going over high impression numbers you may have started to wonder why you had such a large number of impressions but not similar sales numbers.

Viewable Impressions vs. Impressions

A viewable impression means someone actually had the opportunity to see it. An impression simply means it appeared someone on the website. There is a big difference. By looking over your viewable impressions, while the numbers are lower than traditional impressions, gives a much better understanding of how often your ad is actually interacted with in regards to how often someone sees it.

Having this information provides you with a better marketing idea. In fact, once you select a marketing platform that offers viewable impression information, you’ll discover that often times a different product is actually your most popular item, as the number of impressions and viewable impressions are often different. marketing data 

By altering the way you monitor your marketing data, you’ll quickly discover the benefits of watching viewable impressions. Then, by altering and evolving your advertisements to fit this information, you’ll begin to see a boost in lead generating and sales.