What is vCPM?
vCPM is an advertising metric that stands for Viewable Cost per Mille. It measures how frequently an ad is seen by users, as opposed to the number of times it’s placed by the seller. The standard CPM tracks cost per thousand impressions, while vCPM tracks cost for viewable thousand impressions.
According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, an ad can be viewable only if a user saw more than 50% of it for longer than 1 second for display ads. For video ads, users are required to see more than 50% of the ad for longer than 2 seconds. It’s important not to confuse this with “above the fold” placement sellers often state, as this placement doesn’t guarantee vCPM.
Viewable impressions are extremely favorable for advertisers, as ads which are not positioned favorably and cannot be seen by users won’t be charged with vCPM. Statistically, more than half of all ad impressions are either non-viewable or unmeasurable, which makes the cost of CPM advertising twice as much as vCPM.
vCPM can be calculated through three formulas:
vCPM = 1000 x Cost / Viewable impressions
vCPM = CPM x Total Impressions / Viewable impressions
vCPM = CPM / viewable impressions %
