Publishers are often at the forefront of digital ad innovation – continuing to push new formats, new features and the like. We’ve all heard it – static banners don’t cut it anymore. Brands are increasingly looking to draw in audiences with engaging, rich content ad formats, such as the IAB Rising Stars.

This is good news as richer formats command a richer price. However, some publishers are finding it difficult to sell high-impact units at a premium price, when many agencies continue to focus on stale metrics like impressions and clicks.

Old school KPIs might work for static, direct response advertising, but brand advertisers are more concerned with in-ad engagement. How many people watched my video, Pinned my ad content, Tweeted my hashtag, scrolled through my image gallery?

Demand for the rich storytelling experiences that high-impact units provide is on the rise, yet media is still bought and sold in impressions and clicks. Only recently have we started to see a rise in marketers and publishers to begin transacting on engagement. Fingers crossed this signals the importance of changing how we evaluate advertising success in digital.