• December 12, 2013

Just weeks after the Media Rating Council announced it will lift its viewability advisory in Q1 2014, officially backing its use as a digital currency, Google has jumped on the opportunity -- albeit a bit sooner than the MRC anticipated. Google has given marketers the option to bid and pay only for ad impressions that are measured as viewable.

The Viewable CPM bid strategy uses the definition of viewability that has become widely accepted: when 50% of an ad is shown for a second or longer. Google calls it a "viewable CPM bid strategy," which means marketers bid on 1,000 impressions and only pay for slots that are viewable. The "bids are optimized to favor ad slots that are more likely to become viewable," according to Google's information page on the new strategy. However, Google warns eager marketers that "your bid for your viewable CPM might need to be higher than your bid for a standard CPM campaign."