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There is a great article on TechCrunch “Let’s Kill The CPM” that is a great argument to end the use of CPM (cost per thousand) as a metric to buy, sell and evaluate display ads. Shelby Bonnie makes some excellent points as to why the CPM is stunting the growth of online advertising and ultimately annoying the hell out of users. Using CPM instead of engagement, CPA (cost per acquisition) or CTR is driving  publishers to fill as much of their sites with ads which only increase users to tune out the ads.

Unfortunately CPM is going to be a hard stat to shake from a media buyers mind and impossible to remove from the publishers sales lingo. To me CPM is the same thing as traditional media’s ratings. It is a value placed on the popularity of the site/show, without considering the target audience or their ultimate actions; but target audience is everything.

Are people clicking? Does anyone notice the ad? Of those 1000 people per $30, how many are ins the market to even buy our product? And of those who is actually going to take action?

Few sites (and absolutely no traditional) take it beyond the number of eyeballs an ad reaches and determine cost based on engagement, acquisition or another viable statistic. Some might argue it is unfair that a publisher have to rely on how the capabilities of the advertiser, however I think it would push publishers to select the right advertisers and deliver them to a viable target audience. Right now, publishers are willing to let just about anyone advertise, take a look at CNN or Facebook if you don’t believe me. Spammy, bad ads which just drive down a users willingness to click on ads. Clean up the ad space and users will actually find display ads a source of information on products.

We have the technology, we have the data, we just need to push to make the ad system better, more effective and a hell of a lot less annoying.