Facebook counts only ‘viewed ads’, explains approach in blog post
Despite the general trend of ads served being counter, Facebook believes that these online ads should only be counted if they are actually seen by human eyes.
While that’s pretty obvious, and there has been some effort to move in this direction, it has been slow until now.
In a blog post titled “The Value of Viewed Impressions”, Facebook made two clear points: advertisers should focus on viewed and NOT served impressions and also the fact that Facebook already works this way.
In explaining how Facebook approaches this different, the post read, “We measure an ad impression the moment an ad enters the screen of a desktop browser or mobile app. If an ad doesn’t enter the screen, we don’t count it as an ad impression.”
Speaking of Facebook advertising, there are ads on the platform itself while the broader ad platform that the company is in the process of building, which in particular, is the relaunched Atlas and the Audience Network. The latter will bring Facebook ads to outside websites and mobile apps.
Interestingly, Brad Smallwood, the vice president of measurement and insights at Facebook, says that the company means business when they are talking about ad measurement.
Which begs the question as to why they have brought this point up only recently even if it’s been how they are doing things. To which the answer is that they want to push the industry towards viewed instead of served impressions. It’s also another way to suggest that Facebook’s ads are far more valuable.
This is for the simple reason that since whatever ads they do place appears in the Newsfeed, it’s safe to say that the ad is still seen even if ignored.