Digital 101: An impression counts as anytime an ad appears on a user’s screen.
This means an impression is counted even if the user doesn’t actually ‘see’ the ad because it appears in a non-viewable part of the browser.
Now let’s break it down further.
A viewable impression differs depending on the platform and format but for argument’s sake and according to Google, a viewable impression for a standard display ad counts when at least 50% of the area is visible on screen for at least 1 second and for in-stream video it’s 50% of the ad for 2 continuous seconds.
Then if you look into viewability benchmarks, sometimes they can be quite low (again, depending on platform, format etc) but in some cases 50% viewability is seen as a win.
Let’s say you booked 1M impressions. 50% of them are deemed viewable so now you’re down to 500k impressions. Tools like IAS and MOAT allow you to drill down even further and find out what portion of that ad was in view and for how long so you can actually see how many impressions were 100% in view for 1 second or more because, let’s be honest; nobody that is ‘seeing’ 50% of an ad for 1 second is taking any notice of it. So now you’re now looking at a lot less than 500k and I can guarantee that platforms like Facebook are delivering some really dismal results.
In other words, a ‘good’ impression is not that hard to achieve, but is it really worth it?
Who’s game enough to look at a ‘viewable CPM’ once their awareness campaign is over? Any takers?