# Win Rate & View Rate metrics

Voluum DSP improved the data availability in your campaign’s reporting by adding the View Rate and Wins columns. Thanks to these new metrics and the existing metrics Win Rate and Impressions, you are able to more precisely control the bid and the campaign optimization process for the ad exchanges that support viewable ad impressions (vCPM).

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#### Viewable impressions

However, let’s start from scratch: what does "viewable ad impressions" mean?

Viewable ad impressions (vCPM) stands for cost per thousand viewable/guaranteed impressions. It means that the advertiser pays only for the viewed impressions. In other words,  the user actually saw your ad. Viewable impressions measurement is a more accurate key performance indicator (KPI) for campaign performance as the advertiser will not be charged for the creatives that are only rendered on the website, but potentially not even seen to users.

• It’s a cost-saving solution: you are charged only for impressions that are viewed by the website visitors.

• You can track which ads encourage more viewership & engagement. Thanks to this, you receive more accurate information on the number of actual ad clicks (visits) generated by your ad with the guarantee that your ad was seen by the website visitor. The data you gather is highly actionable and suggests enhancements in the campaign’s performance.

• Numbers don't lie: as per a study from Google the median viewability for Above the fold ads is 68% and approximately 40% for Below the fold. For this reason, you should aim at the ad spots above the fold.

You should handle the data in metrics differently with regard to ad exchanges which support and which do not support viewable CPM. Let's analyze both scenarios.

#### Scenario 1: Understanding of metrics in relation to ad exchanges that support viewable CPM

View rate is the percentage that measures the actual number of impressions won and shown to the website visitor divided by the total number of impressions bid on (Total bids).

View rate = (Impressions* / Total bids**) x 100%

* Impressions - the actual number of ad views by a website visitor

** Total bids - a number showing how many times your campaign takes part (bids) in the global auction

Win Rate is the percentage that measures the number of auctions won (Wins) over the number of impressions bid (Total bids).

Win Rate = (Wins* / Total Bids ) x 100%

* Wins - the number of global auctions won, which means that the ad was rendered in the ad widget, but at this stage, it does not necessarily mean that the ad was viewed by the website visitor.

Utilizing this data in practice:

• Check the campaign’s reporting by comparing the values in the Win Rate and View Rate columns. If the View Rate shows a quite high percentage and the Win Rate relatively low value, then it may be necessary to increase a bid on given ad placement in order to get more valuable traffic.

• Delve into the data to decide which Widgets/Ad Space IDs are more likely to become viewable. This way, you will see where you should place an adequate higher custom bid to have a better chance of getting more traffic from the chosen placements. Make some manual adjustments by pausing ad placements with poor viewability. Ad placements with high potential can be added to your whitelist and used in different campaigns as well.

• To keep your ad spend and amount of received traffic at the same level as a CPM campaign, your bid for a viewable CPM campaign might need to be higher than your bid for a standard CPM campaign. Keep in mind that it’s necessary to experiment with a bid to get the most optimal vCPM bid strategy which works best for your campaign.

• Win rate shows how good your bid is and can be improved by changing your CPM. There is no point in increasing the price if your Win Rate is 80% or higher. If you want to try to get more Wins you can do so by increasing your bid slowly to avoid overspending on this particular ad placement.

• Be aware that reaching 100% of the Win Rate is almost impossible. Usually, website owners allocate part of the traffic to direct sell. Traffic limitations can also be caused by technical obstacles like timeouts. That's why there will always be some percentage of the traffic that simply cannot be won.

• View rate is hard to improve as it depends more on the actual place of the ad on the website than your bid.

#### Scenario 2: Understanding of metrics in relation to ad exchanges that DO NOT support viewable CPM

View rate is the percentage that measures the number of Impressions (Wins) won, divided by the number of impressions bid (Total bids). View Rate shows the same values as Win Rate.

View rate = (Impressions* / Total bids)*100%

* Impressions - show how many times your ad has beaten the competition and won a global auction for the chance to have a consumer view your ad. It does not necessarily mean that the ad was viewed by the website visitor, so in this case, Impressions are the same as Wins.

Do you want to know more?

Check the graphics below to better understand the difference between Wins and Impressions in both cases of ad exchanges supporting and not supporting viewable CPM and the bidding flow from the moment the ad starts participating in an auction until the website visitor actually sees the ad.

1. Auction - ad takes part in the real-time bidding process (RTB), where impressions are bought and sold programmatically. When a user visits a website, a corresponding bid request is being sent to an Ad Exchange.

2. Internal Bids - It's a number showing how many times your ad took part in the internal Voluum auction (only among Voluum DSP users whose targeting is identical). If it's higher than the number of Total bids, it means that other ads within Voluum DSP with a higher bid were selected.

3. Total bids - It's a number showing how many times your ad won an internal auction and took part in the external auction.

4. Wins - the number of external auctions won, which means that your ad was rendered in the ad widget, but at this stage, it does not mean that your ad was seen by the website visitor.

5. Impressions - only here the concept is understood differently! check how!

• For ad exchanges supporting viewable CPM - the actual number of ad views by a website visitor. You can be sure that the website visitor saw your ad.

• For ad exchanges NOT supporting viewable CPM - show how many times your ad has beaten the competition and won a global auction for the chance to have a consumer view your ad. It does not necessarily mean that the ad was viewed by the website visitor, so in this case, Impressions are the same as Wins.