Advertising Digital Publishing
2 mins read

Quality online environments are 42% more cost effective for advertisers

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GroupM UK and Newsworks’ ground-breaking new study proves the value of quality online advertising environments with cost effectiveness, audience engagement and brand response all positively impacted.

The research shows that ads appearing in quality online environments are 42% more cost effective for advertisers based on levels of engagement, viewability, above the fold placement and dwell time.

A premium exposure is 58% more likely to be 100% in view (which is GroupM’s global viewability standard) for at least five seconds. The online industry standard is 50% in view for at least one second. Conversely, the study found that 48% of measurable ads on the open exchange were never actually seen.

In contrast, ads in quality digital environments – defined as a website where consumers have a deeper relationship or affinity with the brand, are 273% more likely to prompt a hover from a user. Premium placements also produced stronger response rates across the board with average uplifts of +10.5% for brand awareness, +19.2% for ad recall, +9.7% for brand perception and +10.3% for recommendation intent.

The study results from a partnership between GroupM UK, Newsworks and Newsworks’ national newspaper stakeholders, and covered 84 campaigns, over 398 million impressions and 28,549 filtered survey responses. This scale is on a par with industry surveys such as TGI. It ran between September 2017 and June 2018, with GroupM analysing the ad environments of live digital campaigns.

The findings will now be used to build an industry-wide quality exposure factor for programmatic buying systems.

Robin O’Neill, MD digital trading, GroupM UK, comments, “We all instinctively assume that where you see an ad has an impact on how you receive it, but it’s one thing to assume something and another to quantify the value of it. This study provides conclusive evidence that when it comes to ad environments, not all digital is equal and advertisers stand to benefit hugely from seeking quality online contexts.”

More details about the research and downloadable charts are available here.