Ad inventory inflation
Also: ad space inflation, inventory inflation
Ad inventory inflation is the constant growth in the number of ad placements, above all in digital media, where space and time hardly have limits. The more advertising competes for the same attention, the less each individual contact is worth.
The True Effect view
For the sell side that is good business: the supply of ad placements can be expanded at will – and sold. For advertisers it isn’t: the effect of their advertising is diluted while the CPM and other cost-per-contact KPIs seem to improve. The bill goes to the advertiser.
We stop the inflation in our own media plans: with free choice of media, premium environments and zero-waste safeguards – and with measurement that counts effect, not volume.
Example
A news site now shows eight ads per article instead of three. The CPM falls and the reach in the report rises – but each individual ad is noticed less often.