Digital marketing term
CPV
What you pay when a platform counts a video as viewed. It is not a click or a complete watch, and the “viewed” threshold changes by network, so compare vendors carefully.
Detailed explanation
Use it on YouTube and similar video inventory when you are buying attention, not a form fill. Awareness and story work here; judging the buy on last-click sales misreads the job. Confirm which second counts as a view before you launch.
A cheap view is not interest. Autoplay, muted previews, or the wrong audience inflate the count. If the message is unclear in the first seconds, you get a low rate and no memory. Busy overlays bury the brand and captions.
Pair view cost with completion, branded search, and on-site conversion. If cheap views never earn a click or recall, change the creative or the audience—do not just raise the bid.
Frequently asked questions
- Does a view mean they watched the end?
- Usually not. Many networks count a few seconds as a view. Read the campaign’s view definition before you compare vendors.
- When is CPM the better buy?
- When you want a stable cost per thousand served, not payment tied to the view rule. CPV fits when you only want to pay for counted views.
Related terms
Internal links for the topic cluster — read these concepts together.
- CPMCPM (Cost Per Mille) is the cost of 1,000 ad impressions; it is one of the most common media buying units.
- ViewA video or ad counted as watched or seen once it clears the platform’s threshold — not the same as an impression. YouTube, Meta, and programmatic clocks differ, so do not treat the totals as identical.
- Display AdvertisingBanners, native units, and other visual formats on sites and apps. Unlike search text ads, they show up before someone has typed a query into the box.
- ImpressionAn impression is a single instance of an online ad being displayed to a user.
- CTRCTR (Click-Through Rate) is the percentage of impressions that result in a click on an ad or link.
- CPCCost per click: what you pay when someone clicks, not when the ad is only shown. The auction and Quality Score — or the platform equivalent — move that price as much as your bid does.