Category Archives: display media

DAA Viewthrough Definition Project Seeks Participants

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Good news, the Viewthrough Measurement Consortium and the Digital Analytics Association are partnering. We’re pleased to be working with the DAA Standards Committee, who have taken up the viewthrough cause – below is their call for participants.


The viewthrough standardization proposal seeks to establish a foundational definition and inclusion in the DAA glossary.Although this metric is measured by many analytics, research, ad server and ad network platforms, it is little known and understood in comparison to clickthrough. The emerging viewable ad impression while related, is more about ad position and delivery. Viewthrough is about latent ad response and is most easily captured by advertiser-side site analytics like Omniture and CoreMetrics. Even Facebook is offering up their conversion tracking pixel with hopes of leveraging this measure as a means to understand the silent majority of people that do not click on display ads but do respond. 

This project falls under marketing definitions, a new area for the Standards Committee and one with substantial potential as we broaden our standards role. The standards definition project is in the proposal stage and is seeking additional members to set scope and provide input.

Sample Viewthrough Report

If you’d like to participate in the viewthrough project, please contact Domenico Tassone at dtassone (AT) viewthrough DOT org.

For more information about the DAA Standards Committee or to contact the Co-Chairs, reach out to Anna Long and Darrin Wood .

Proposed Definition of an Ad Viewthrough

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Viewthrough (view-through) is a measure of the passive but self-directed response from paid media (banner, rich media, video or audio). For starters:

  • Scope
    • Post-impression viewthrough follows from one or more ad exposures where there was no click event
    • Although the focus here is on display media, viewthrough or passive response could come from email, affiliate advertising, online PR and “dark” social media
    • Apart from Google’s self-serving studies, no independent research validates the notion of a paid search viewthrough
  • Relation to Clickthrough
    • Distinguished from post-click visitation or conversion
  • Measurement
    • Can be a success metric like a conversion, high-value task or a site visit
    • Can be measured by a brand on its’ own Web properties through site analytics
    • Can be measured more broadly (competitor/peer site visitation, search, etc…) through panel-based research
    • May be subject to attribution rules, such as first touch, last touch, equal touch or staistically derived techniques
  • Time
    • Is subject to a lookback and lookahead window that is configured by the ad server
    • Viewthrough impact decays over time from the initial ad exposure
  • Calculation
    • The VTR (viewthrough rate) is calculated as # of viewthrough / # of impressions (viewed impressions preferably)
    • Impressions should be based on “viewed” or “viewable” for most accurate measurement
    • In-flight viewthrough are observed during a live ad campaign, while the post-flight viewthrough “vapor-trail” can be observed when the campaign ends or is paused
If you have feedback, please reach out or comment below!

Calls for Viewthrough, Proper Display Attribution Growing

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As the digital media and marketing business continues to evolve the interest in passive response from digital display (banners, video and non-search mobile) is growing. Although the banner is almost 20 years old now (born c. 1995) the legacy obsession with click-based response measurement and simplistic attribution is only now beginning to collapse thanks to new tools and better methodologies.


Bravo…it’s about time.

Dax Herman who heads-up search-targeted display ad network Chango recently put together an elaborate white paper,  Viewthrough Attribution Exposed: What last Touch Isn’t Telling You. I had the opportunity to work with Chango in an ecommerce setting over the past year and found their interest in and approach to meaningful analytics for their near (but not quite) bottom of the funnel ad media refreshing and collaborative.

Recently, Dax asked for my POV on viewthrough measurement which you’ll find a snippet of in the white paper; this also led to a recent post, here at the Tip of the Spear Blog: Viewthrough Incrementality Testing. More broadly, we’re planning to collaborate with other digital advertising leaders to further viewthrough measurement…it won’t be easy but it needs to happen.

Viewthrough.org Coalition
If you or your company has an interest in viewthrough measurement and attribution please get in touch to learn more about collaborating on the Viewthrough.org effort; as part of this effort we’re looking to work with leading measurement technologies, digital marketers and especially the DAA/IAB to standardize the definition of viewthrough.

Calls for Viewthrough, Proper Display Attribution Growing

Leave a reply

As the digital media and marketing business continues to evolve the interest in passive response from digital display (banners, video and non-search mobile) is growing. Although the banner is almost 20 years old now (born c. 1995) the legacy obsession with click-based response measurement and simplistic attribution is only now beginning to collapse thanks to new tools and better methodologies.


Bravo…it’s about time.

Dax Herman who heads-up search-targeted display ad network Chango recently put together an elaborate white paper,  Viewthrough Attribution Exposed: What last Touch Isn’t Telling You. I had the opportunity to work with Chango in an ecommerce setting over the past year and found their interest in and approach to meaningful analytics for their near (but not quite) bottom of the funnel ad media refreshing and collaborative.

Recently, Dax asked for my POV on viewthrough measurement which you’ll find a snippet of in the white paper; this also led to a recent post, here at the Tip of the Spear Blog: Viewthrough Incrementality Testing. More broadly, we’re planning to collaborate with other digital advertising leaders to further viewthrough measurement…it won’t be easy but it needs to happen.

Viewthrough.org Coalition
If you or your company has an interest in viewthrough measurement and attribution please get in touch to learn more about collaborating on the Viewthrough.org effort; as part of this effort we’re looking to work with leading measurement technologies, digital marketers and especially the DAA/IAB to standardize the definition of viewthrough.