We’ve been really excited to see the interest and adoption of our new Ads-to-Content-Ratio (A2CR) metrics.  We’ve been collecting a lot of feedback from customers + the larger ad tech community, and we would like to announce some changes to the A2CR Methodology.  

Current Methodology:  Measure Ads content by Creative Boundary

As a reminder, A2CR measures the amount of pixels that are ads related versus content related. The current methodology measures the pixel dimensions used by the creative asset in the environment. 

We think this is a valid approach, but not without limitations:

• This can make the A2CR seem lower on publishers than it actually is in the wild, if we happen to get a small creative asset. 
• This method can introduce a lot of variability / jitter in day to day A2CR numbers that can be confusing for publishers. 
• On one visit by Sincera’s Synthetic User (SU) an ad unit could render a 234x60 creative, but on a subsequent visit, the SU sees a 600x300 creative, creating high visit-to-visit variability in A2CR. 
• For publishers with high ad refresh values, this methodology can result in lower-than-expected A2CR, as the ad slots are empty / caught between refreshes.  

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New Methodology: Measure Ads content by Slot OR Creative Dimensions 

This approach builds on the current methodology, but we will now compare both the Creative dimensions and the Ad Slot dimensions, and Sincera will take the largest of the two values.

• We think this is more accurate and indicative of the ad environment within the publisher, because while the creative may be small in this particular visit, we know a specific amount of pixels / space is reserved for the ad.
• We also think this will make A2CR values more consistent on a visit by visit basis, dramatically reducing jitter, whilst still capturing scenarios where publishers have full-screen takeovers, etc. 

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Some publishers may feel that their A2CR scores are too high, if they reserve a lot of space for ads that they infrequently fill.  We’re happy to work with publishers to provide guidance on how they can right-size their ad slots for optimal measurement. 

Rollout and Enterprise Options

Sincera’s global datasets will be migrating to the new A2CR methodology by Monday, December 4th.  Sincera enterprise customers have the option to run either methodology on their private job workflows. 

If you have any feedback or thoughts about A2CR (or any other metrics you'd like to see) we’d love to hear from you! Reach out to the team at hello@sincera.io.