Digital research firm comScore recently released its 2013 Digital Future Focus Report, which reveals a disturbing fact for online advertisers: Of the 5.3 trillion display ad impressions served online annually, consumers never see 31 percent due to site design. The adoption of a viewable impressions standard will help marketers better assess the value of their media buys, the report says. “Look for advertisers to demand more accountability, and publishers to reconfigure site design and ad inventory to improve performance.”

Each new advertising format experiences peaks in engagement at the outset out of sheer novelty. But in order to continue to drive sustainable click-through rates (CTRs), ads must be rotated and improved based on consumer interaction throughout a campaign. After five months of running the same creative, according to a study from ReTargeter, CTRs drop almost 50 percent, on average, from 0.21 percent to 0.12 percent. “Even ads that are in the line of sight are white noise,” says Jason Lehmbeck, CEO of the Los Angeles-based digital agency DataPop, a microtargeting specialist. “Whether they’re on the phone or on the computer, the trendlines for consumer ad engagement are not promising for retailers.”

Big data can help generate unique offers to highly targeted consumers, he says, by taking an “X-ray” of the ad to test engagement based on what’s known about the individual consumers in question. “By focusing on generating ads that deserve the consumer’s attention, you can turn the tide on this trend,” he says. “The real trick is to understand why Ad A did better than Ad B; then, you can start to turn the curve around and move your click-through rates up and build ROI.”