How do you define a Unique Impression?

Discussion in 'General Marketing' started by bpasc95, Mar 28, 2008.

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  1. #1
    Hey all!

    I'm doing a bit of research for our ad server project to find out what would be considered a "correct" method (or best practice) for tracking and billing for impressions with regards to advertising efforts.

    For example, when one makes an ad buy based on CPM, what are expecting to pay for? My assumption is that the advertiser should be billed on some form of per-unique impression as opposed to raw. However, I'm noticing that many ad server products look to be billing based on raw data.

    Some platforms go on to say that an ad impression is counted ever X hours to a unique machine where X ranges from 12 to 24 hours.

    So, to summarize what feedback I am looking for:
    1. When advertising on a CPM network, what are expecting to pay for - per unique or raw impression?
    2. If paying on uniques, what do you consider a unique and in how long?
    3. Any other feedback on CPM based advertising you think would be important for an ad platform.

    Thanks in advance,
    Bing
     
    bpasc95, Mar 28, 2008 IP
  2. amarques

    amarques Peon

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    #2
    Well, an impression is an impression... If the same visitor requests 5 impressions from the server, then 5 impressions are counted.

    If you want to sell on "uniques", my sites set uniques at 12 hours intervals.
     
    amarques, Mar 28, 2008 IP
  3. webbom

    webbom Well-Known Member

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    #3
    Good to see that you collect this kind of information before making your product. This could give you a really good picture of what people want.

    Answering your questions
    1. I expect to pay per unique
    2. A unique is per 24 hours
    3. Very specific targeting. Try subdividing the publisher sites in more specific categories. Or maybe with tags or something similar.
     
    webbom, Mar 28, 2008 IP
  4. bpasc95

    bpasc95 Active Member

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    #4

    Thank you for the feedback. Regarding targeting, we will be extending on the contextual engine that is already built into the product in addition the content channels, so I think that would cover such a feature.
     
    bpasc95, Mar 28, 2008 IP
  5. bpasc95

    bpasc95 Active Member

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    #5
    Thanks for the feedback. Since the current system is based on CPC, we were counting impressions as you mentioned above (raw), five visitor requests are five impressions counted. We recently changed this to skip bots (and other invalid sources) since they never turn to valid clicks anyway.

    As it looks so far, 12-24 hours is the assumed unique period.
     
    bpasc95, Mar 28, 2008 IP