YuMe, a video ad platform, have released an upgraded version of their ‘Placement Quality Index’ (PQI), which they say can boost interaction rates by up to 30 percent. PQI ensures that video ad placements that have a history of brand safety violations receive a lower score and will not be valued as highly comparable brand safe video advertising inventory. The index looks at each digital publisher and application on the site list to grade the value of all available inventory. The algorithm looks at things like player size and location, content type, and past campaign performance metrics, so that each campaign secures the best possible inventory based on the campaign’s objectives.
A Two-Edged Sword
“PQI creates a score for violations,” explains Ed Haslam, YuMe’s SVP of marketing. “It’s a two-edged sword. It allows us to go back to the publishers themselves and tell them ‘You’re going to get less fill and you’re going to get lower CPMs if we keep seeing this happen. Then for brand advertisers I think it gives them a little sense of security, a little like when you install virus scanning software on your computer. You feel safer even though you know people are still going to be trying to hack or violate your machine.”
Boosts Completion Rates
YuMe say PQI is proving to be effective, with clients such as PHD, Digitas and MEC seeing an average 15 percent lift in video completion rates and an average 30 percent lift in interaction rates versus YuMe category benchmarks.
“When building a media plan for our clients we look to ensure the best possible brand performance even before the campaign launches,” said Wade Rifkin, VP, Media Director at Digitas. “Brand campaign KPIs are nuanced and the marketplace doesn’t offer many meaningful levers for optimization. With YuMe’s PQI algorithm we can use signals at the page level that indicate the quality and efficacy of placements.”
YuMe say they are already blocking ads that are in violation of privacy rules and in Q4 2012, YuMe blocked roughly one percent of ads, for violations such assyndication (blacklist and whitelist) and viewability concerns. However, the PQI will lead to that kind of inventory will being devalued on the network.
