By Estefan Albeiro

In online advertising, there is a supposed metric called “viewability.” Of course, businesses who advertise want 100% viewability. The higher the viewability rate, the higher the CPM. Viewability should measure how effective ads campaigns are, right? Wrong. El Toro is out to prove that “viewability” is nothing more than a way to trick marketing directors into rationalizing wasted dollars.

Viewability should NEVER impact CPM, because it is not an accurate metric. If I were to put up a billboard next to a busy interstate, I could grasp the “viewability” of my billboard, because I can drive by and see it myself, and so can other drivers. I could even measure the amount of drivers who pass by my billboard every day. It’s difficult, but I could attain fairly accurate measurements. How are traditional digital advertisers measuring the same kind of billboard viewability, but online? The truth is: they aren’t. They can’t.

A “view” in itself means nothing to marketing teams, advertising budgets, and bottom lines. What constitutes a view to traditional, cookie-based digital advertisers is a simple way for them to pad their numbers. The Media Rating Council, the organization responsible for setting advertising standards, states that a “view” is measured when at least 50% of the pixels in an ad show up on the computer or smartphone screen, for around 1 second. There is no real way to measure if any ads were actually seen and comprehended by internet users. Users may have even scrolled down the page before any ads had the chance to load. Not to mention that there is no way to verify that your ad “views” come from real human beings, not fraudulent bots.

So how CAN businesses with digital ad campaigns measure their effectiveness? Simple- by measuring actual ROI. Increases in sales. Increases in traffic. And this can only be measured by El Toro’s patented IP targeted advertising system. At El Toro, we know “viewability” is an industry buzzword to make those who want accurate results feel more comfortable throwing ad budget dollars into a campaign that may produce ZERO results on an income statement. That’s why we use a match back analysis on all of our campaigns- our clients know exactly what their campaign money is turning into. Don’t get fooled by feel-good industry jargon. Measure accurate results with El Toro IP targeting.