Say hello to the ad industry’s newest acronym: vCPM (viewable cost-per-thousand).
A few weeks back, Google announced that it will be introducing 100% viewable ads in the coming months, bringing all online ad campaigns bought on a CPM basis into view across its Google Display Network.
The news comes as a relief to advertisers, who have long complained about the high percentage of ads that never have a chance to be viewed by “real people.”
The statistic that Google likes to reference is that approximately 55% of all display ads are never viewed due to a myriad of factors — such as appearing being below the fold, being scrolled out of view, or showing up in a background tab.
And the problem is only growing larger with the increased adoption of ad blocker software tools.
Google isn’t the only that’s one coming up with in-view advertising guarantees. Facebook recently announced that it will begin selling 100% viewable ads in its News Feed area.
But some are questioning how much of a better benefit 100% viewability will be in actuality. For one thing, ad rates for these program are sure to be higher than for conventional ad buying contracts.
For another, neither Facebook nor Google have stated how long an ad would need to remain in view before an advertiser gets charged. Whether it’s 1 second, 2 seconds or 5 seconds makes a huge difference in the real worth of that exposure to the consumer.
Then there’s the realm of mobile advertising. In a startling analysis conducted and reported on by The New York Times, a mix of advertising and editorial on the mobile home pages of the top 50 news sites was measured. What the analysis found was that mobile airtime is being chewed up by advertising content far more than by the editorial content people are tuning in to view.
Boston.com mobile readers are a case in point. The analysis found that its readers spend an average of ~31 seconds waiting for ads to load versus ~8 seconds waiting for the editorial content to load. That translates into a home page visitor paying $9.50 per month — just to view the ads.
When there’s suddenly a cost implication in addition to the basic “irritation factor,” expect more smartphone and tablet users to avail themselves of ad blockers even more than they do today.
As if on cud, Apple is now allowing ad blockers on the iPhone, giving consumers the ability to conserve data, make websites load faster, and save on usage charges all in one fell swoop.
Sounds like a pretty sweet deal all-around.