viewability

Definition

A metric indicating whether an ad actually appeared on someone's screen or was technically served but never seen, like a tree falling in the forest but the forest is a webpage and the tree costs $50 CPM. Industry standard: 50% of pixels visible for one second.

Example Usage

Our viewability rate was only 40%, meaning we paid for thousands of impressions that loaded below the fold while users rage-quit the page.

Origin

Developed by the Media Rating Council in 2014 to address ad fraud concerns

Fun Fact

Before viewability standards, advertisers paid for millions of 'impressions' that loaded in hidden iframes or below 10 screens of content—the digital equivalent of billboards in tunnels.

Source: Media Rating Council (MRC) standards

Related Terms

Beginner

cart abandonment rate

The percentage of shoppers who add items to their online cart then flee before completing purchase, usually hovering around a soul-crushing 70%. It's the digital equivalent of people filling their shopping basket then just walking out of the store.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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virality

The Holy Grail metric measuring how quickly content spreads across the internet like a digital contagion. Every marketer dreams of achieving it, most fail miserably, and the few who succeed usually have no idea how it actually happened. It's basically controlled chaos with a fancy epidemiological name.

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growth hacker

A marketer who focuses exclusively on rapid user acquisition through unconventional tactics, often ignoring sustainability or brand building. A marketer who thinks rules are suggestions.

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peel-back ad

A rich media format where a page corner appears to curl, revealing an ad when users hover over it. Peak 2000s internet design that somehow still exists like a digital cockroach.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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marketing qualified lead

A prospect who's shown enough interest to warrant sales attention but hasn't quite committed, occupying that precious limbo between 'downloaded a whitepaper' and 'actually wants to talk to someone.' The marketing team's way of saying 'we've done our part, now it's your turn' to sales.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

contextual advertising

Placing ads based on the content of the page rather than user tracking, showing car ads on automotive sites instead of following users around. It's the old-fashioned targeting approach that's suddenly new again as privacy regulations tighten.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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