Ad CPM Rates in US: 2021 Edition

This article has been penned down to discuss ad CPM rates in the US. The US is one of the fastest-growing countries in terms of digital assets, and advertisers around the world are always looking to pay premium rates to enter and sustain in the market. As a result, the CPM rates in the United States are one of the highest in the industry.

Auctions, Media Buying, and CPM Rates

To understand the seller’s point of view, you should also be able to understand the buyer’s side of the story. This will give a more vivid picture of the entire ecosystem and thus help you to strategize monetization, content creation, and content planning will be more robust in the long run. To start, almost 80% of your earnings are brought by less than 20% of the impressions. This essentially means that there is a massive gap in inventory buying, rates, quality conversions, and more. If you are using AdSense revenue profile or have used the AdSense lab tools, you have a fair idea of this. Take a look here…

This means, essentially, buyers are paying premium rates for some impressions, and a good volume of impressions are taken at flat rates. However, almost most of the time, these pricings and optimizations are determined by Google’s algorithms (smart pricing) or other techniques that define the CPC or CPM rates on individual websites. So, based on the traffic, conversions, viewability, and other parameters, these rates change! Therefore, it is difficult to predict the CPM of a website entirely. Thus we will be sharing information about the network CPM rates for specific countries.

Understanding Network CPM Rates

The CPM rates vary depending on the niche of the site and how well the traffic converts for the advertisers. There are websites that convert to USD 10 and above, and also, there are sites that give as low as USD 1 and below. This huge fluctuation makes it difficult to predict even an approximate CPM for sites. In this article, we will be discussing the network CPM rates, which means, it is the average of an aggregate of websites that are within an SSPs. This data is still beneficial since you’ll have a fair idea of the CPM range within a specific geography and is more country-specific. So let’s go ahead and discuss the CPM rates across display, native, and video ad formats for US traffic.

Ad CPM Rates in the US
Ad CPM Rates in the US

Display Ad CPM Rates in the US

Most of the websites with moderate to high traffic use several ad networks and SSPs to maximize their revenue potential for every ad impression. The display ad CPM reaches its highest potential on a header bidding auction environment wherein the impression is sold to the highest bidder. This results in rates that are typically higher than Google Ad Exchange by almost 30% and more. For general purpose sites like news, entertainment, etc., the US display CPM is around USD 1.5 to USD 3. For specific niche sites, it goes higher due to the increased competition. However, it is comparatively lesser than AdSense.

ADX CPM Rates in the US

Recently, ADX has shifted to the first-price auction, and publishers witnessed some fluctuations in their ad revenue. ADX tends to perform best on sites that have high volume traffic and offers better opportunities for advertisers. The ad exchange CPM rates hover around USD 0.80 to USD 2 for US traffic.

AdSense CPM Rates in the US

AdSense CPM rates can vary depending upon the category of the website. It is usually USD 1.5 to USD 2 and can go as high as USD 10 and above for niche websites. Since the number of clicks drives the rates, you need to have an optimized ad placement to ensure the revenues are higher. The ads must not be too heavy on the eye, yet strategically placed to grab the right kind of attention. Have the right balance of the number of ads, placements, and ad sizes to maximize your earnings potential with Google AdSense. You can also allow Google to take the lead on your Ads and optimize on your behalf, so you can take a back seat and watch your revenue uplift.

Native Ads CPM Rates in the US

Native ads can give a widget RPM of USD 3 to USD 5. The rates can further vary depending on the traffic quality and the conversions for the advertisers. Overall, the CPM rates for native ads do differ much from site to site and is more geography dependent. So what determines the significant difference is the type of content on your websites. Sites that are in the entertainment, gossip, news domain tends to perform quite well with native ads.

Video Ads CPM Rates in the US

The US video market has seen robust and steady growth in the last few years, and the video CPM rates for US traffic is stable at USD 5 and above for general and entertainment sites. It can go as high as USD 30 for specific niche websites that are related to tech, software, and gadgets. It is always suggested that you run a waterfall model for your video ads so that you can generate the highest CPMs for your video inventory.

Waterfalling, also known as a daisy chain or waterfall tags, is a process used by a publisher to sell all remnant inventory. This process occurs when a publisher has been unable to sell its premium ad slots that are usually reserved for direct ad sales between the publisher’s internal sales team and advertisers. The advantage of this daisy chain is the publisher can sell off its inventory; however, as the impressions go further down the waterfall, the CPM price, which is worked out as an average, decreases.

I hope this article on ad CPM rates in the US gives you an overall summary of the current CPM rates across the various digital ad formats, which includes the display, video, native. We will continue supplementing new ad formats like VR, podcast, in-app, and others, so feel free to check back this article after a few days for the latest version.

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