Can You Get Paid Per Impression With Google Adsense?

CPC vs CPM Ads

When advertisers sign up for the Google Adwords program, they can customize many features associated with their advertisements. One of the key factors that they can decide on is whether they want to pay each time someone clicks on an ad or each time that it is displayed. With CPC, or cost-per-click, advertising, advertisers pay an amount each time someone clicks on an ad. With CPM, or cost per million, advertisers pay for 1000 thousand impressions. They set the rate they are willing to pay for those exposures and then pay each time their ad is displayed.

Webmasters Lack Choice

When you participate in the Google AdSense program, you do not get to choose whether your website displays ads in the CPC or CPM format. Google's algorithms calculate which ads would best be suited to your site and chooses the one that will pay you the most. When someone visits one of your pages, the Google code will insert an ad into the page. It could be a CPC or a CPM ad and it is subject to change on every visit.

Competing Ads

The ads that are displayed on Google essentially compete against one another for placement. The way they compete is with ad quality and how much they are willing to pay. When an ad has a high click-through rate, meaning a high percentage of people click on it, it will receive premium placement in the Google ad network. If advertisers are willing to pay more money, the ads will also receive premium placement. This means that CPM advertisers must be willing to pay if they want to compete with CPC ads.

Considerations

Since advertisers pay slightly differently for CPC and CPM ads, Google has to use an advanced calculation to determine which ads are displayed. The Google algorithm essentially calculates the effective cost of 1000 impressions for cost-per-click advertisers. The effective cost for this CPC advertisement is compared against the cost-per-impression ads. The algorithm also takes into account the click-through rate and other factors when determining which ads will ultimately be displayed on your site.