The level of online ad viewability in the UK rose from 49 per cent in Q2 2015 to 52 per cent in Q3, according to a new report from European ad verification company Meetrics.

In Q3 2015, 52 per cent of online ads served in the UK met the IAB and Media Ratings Council’s recommendation that an ad is considered viewable if 50 per cent of it is in view for at least one second.

Viewability in the UK is still well below that of Germany (even though levels there dropped from 64 per cent to 61 per cent) and France (which rose from 62 per cent to 69 per cent).

“Viewability levels are, at last, heading in the right direction as the industry increasingly gets to grips with the issue, but there’s still a long way to go,” said Anant Joshi, Meetrics’ director of international business. “Based on the IAB’s latest digital ad spend report¹ our data suggests about £260m was wasted in Q3 on unseen ads – equivalent to over £1bn a year.”

The report reveals that half-page ads are the most viewable (72 per cent) ad format, followed by billboards on 67 per cent. Leaderboards are the least viewable format on 40 per cent.

“The main reason ads aren’t viewable is they take too long to load – about 20 per cent of ads served don’t load before a viewer has moved elsewhere,” said Joshi. “Consequently, the industry has much to do in terms of increasing web-page performance and ad serving systems, notably, to drastically reduce the amount of web browser redirects that go on behind the scenes before content is loaded.”

As well as a rise in overall viewability levels, the average time viewable ads (those meeting the 50 per cent/1 second rule) were in view rose from 29.5 seconds in Q2 to 31.2 seconds in Q3.