Microsoft Monetize - Improve low viewability performance

You can always improve viewability rate performance by adjusting your line item setup, even after setting a viewability threshold.

For reference, Microsoft Advertising considers any viewability rate higher than 0% to be normal. This is because viewability rates can vary greatly from one placement and impression to another. Instances of zero viewability (0%) can occur when:

• a user leaves a page within one second of a creative rendering
• a user rapidly scrolls down their screen, missing a creative near the top of the page
• a creative is near the bottom of a page, and few users scroll down that far
• a tall banner creative is served, so fewer than 50% of its pixels are in view.

Consider the following viewability improvement options when editing your line item:

Set a predicted viewability threshold for your line item

Setting a predicted viewability threshold when creating or editing a line item ensures that your line item prioritizes delivery on inventory with a predicted viewability rate greater than or equal to your set threshold. Simultaneously, adding a predicted viewability threshold reduces or otherwise eliminates delivery to inventory with lower viewability.

Setting a viewability threshold doesn't guarantee a certain viewability rate performance for your line item, as viewability threshold targeting is based on historical viewability data for specific domain-placement combinations. Therefore, predicted viewability rates for domains and placements can be higher than the actual viewability rate that your served creatives achieve on that inventory.

For more information on setting a predicted viewability threshold, see Set Up Viewability and Environment Targeting for a Line Item.

Manually configure creative weights to prioritize viewability performance

If you select Manually weight creatives as your Creative Rotation option, you can assign percentage weights to your line item's associated creatives. To improve your line item's viewability rate performance, add more percentage weight to creatives that have higher historical viewability rates. This prioritizes creatives with better viewability performance, and deprioritizes creatives with lower viewability performance.

For more information on creative rotation, see Creative Rotation (ALI).

Serve smaller creatives

Smaller creatives tend to be in view--having at least 50% of a creative's pixels rendered on screen--more often than larger creatives. Thus, smaller creatives usually have higher viewability rates compared to larger creatives, because the chance of the whole creative being viewed is higher. You should evaluate the size of your line item's current associated creatives and consider serving smaller creatives more frequently.

Remove creatives with low viewability rates from your line item

If some of your line item's associated creatives have low viewability performance, it may be best to remove them, so that only higher-performing creatives are being served. To analyze your creatives' viewability performance, click Creative in the nav bar to open the Creatives screen, where you can view the Viewability Rate% for any of your advertiser's or line item's creatives.

Use blocklists to stop targeting domains with low viewability rates

You can improve viewability performance by identifying low-performing viewability domains through the:

• Network Analytics Report / Advertiser Analytics Report
• Network Site Domain Performance Report / Advertiser Site Domain Performance Report

After identifying any concerning domains, you can add them to a blocklist for your line item. This method ensures that you only serve on higher-performing viewability inventory. If you want to block a specific placement, then you'll need to locate that placements ID and add it into your programmable split targeting to block that particular placement.

This method can reduce delivery if you add too much inventory to the blocklist. Therefore, it's best to add the lowest-performing viewability inventory to the blocklist, while also being conservative in adding closer-to-average viewability rate inventory. For more information on using blocklists, see Inventory Targeting (ALI).

Use programmable split targeting to block placements with low viewability rates

Viewability rates for a publisher's inventory can vary from placement to placement. To target higher-performing inventory placements, you can add programmable splits to your line item and configure them to block placements. For more information on creating and customizing programmable splits, see Configure a Programmable Split.

Move domains with high-performing viewability rates to an allowlist

You can improve viewability performance by identifying high-performing viewability domains and placements through the:

• Network Analytics Report / Advertiser Analytics Report
• Network Site Domain Performance Report / Advertiser Site Domain Performance Report

Then, you can add them to an allowlist. This method ensures that you only deliver on high-performing viewability inventory. However, it can reduce delivery if you don't add enough inventory to the allowlist. So it's best to include the largest amount of inventory that you feel comfortable with. For more information on using allowlists, see Set Up Line Item Inventory and Brand Safety.

Increase your line item's bid prices

Increasing your line item's bid prices lets you access higher-performing viewability inventory.