AdWords Introduces Display Network Viewable CPM Bidding and Active View Metrics

Almost two years in the making, AdWords Introduces Display Network Viewable CPM Bidding and Active View Metrics to the AdWords User Interface.

Active View was originally announced in an April 2012 AdWords Agency blog post.

Active View: Advertisers have long looked for insight into whether consumers saw an ad on page 145 of a magazine, or switched the channel during a TV commercial break. It’s similar online, so we’re rolling out a technology, which will be submitted for Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation, that can count “viewed” impressions (as defined by the 3MS coalition’s proposed standard, this is a display ad that is at least 50% viewable on the screen for at least one second).

Called Active View, this will first be available in coming weeks within Google Display Network Reserve. We’ll also be making this metric a universal currency, ultimately offering it within DoubleClick for Advertisers, as well as to our publisher partners. Active View data will be immediately actionable—advertisers will be able to pay only for viewed impressions. Going forward, we’re working on viewed impression standards with 3MS, and our agency and publisher partners.

A year later in April 2013 Google’s Inside AdWords announced an important milestone.

We support a viewable impressions standard and have been partnering with the industry to push this forward. Today we’ve reached an important milestone on this journey – Media Rating Council (MRC) accreditation for our viewability measurement solution, Active View, which we introduced last year.

Today I noticed we have the ability to create a Display Network Campaign with Viewable CPM Bidding and Enable viewable CPM (with Active View Reporting).

 

Three new metrics have also been included in the AdWords User Interface; Active View viewable impressions, Active View viewable CTR, and Active View avg. CPM.  These metrics can be added to the User Interface by modifying custom columns.

What do these metrics mean?  Well, I could not find any official AdWords Help Center documentation to share, but I think it is pretty cut and dry.

• Active View viewable impressions are impressions of at least 50% of the ad on screen for at least one second.
• Active View viewable CTR is the Click Through Rate on these ads.
• Active View avg. CPM is the average cost per 1000 Active View impressions.

This addition is so new that I could not find any Googlers who could speak about it and all the Learn More links for Help Center material lead to pages not found.

Viewability increases the value of advertisers dollars and of publisher sites.  This  metric is designed be actionable but not only for after-the-fact reporting.  Based on Active View, advertisers can buy inventory on Google’s Display Network  and pay for only impressions that meet the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s proposed viewability standard at least 50% on screen for one second or longer.