UK advertisers spent in the region of £606m on non-viewable ads last year, according to ad verification company Meetrics.

The IAB and Media Ratings Council recommend that 50 per cent of an ad should be in view for at least one second. In Q4 of 2016, only 49 per cent of banner ads served met this viewability recommendation. This is a figure that matches Q3, which was a marginal improvement on Q2’s 47 per cent, but a drop from 54 per cent in Q1.

“Despite the ongoing attention and initiatives focused on addressing viewability, things just aren’t really improving,” said Anant Joshi, director of international business at Meetrics. “Yes, you can argue viewability has stabilised over the last couple of quarters and is marginally up on six months ago but the reality is viewability levels are lower than a year ago and over half of ads served still aren’t viewable.”

The UK is significantly behind other European countries in terms of viewability level. In Austria 68 per cent of ads are viewable, while Germany is at 58 per cent and France at 57 per cent.