The ranges most US video advertisers land in
These are the cost-per-view bands we see most often across US video campaigns. Treat them as a sanity check, not a target, your vertical, geo mix and creative length move them.
| Format | Typical CPV | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Skippable in-stream (TrueView) | $0.010 to $0.030 | Broad reach, most price movement |
| Non-skippable in-stream (15s) | $0.018 to $0.045 | Priced on CPM, converted to CPV |
| In-feed video | $0.020 to $0.060 | Intent-heavy, thinner supply |
| Shorts | $0.006 to $0.020 | Cheap views, weakest attention signal |
| Connected TV | $0.030 to $0.080 | Premium supply, least price elasticity |
Why the average CPV hides the waste
A single account CPV is the weighted average of thousands of auctions that were not priced the same. Within one week of one campaign you will usually find a two-to-three-times spread between the cheapest and most expensive hour-and-placement combination for identical inventory. Averaging that away is what makes an account look fine while a third of the budget clears above the price it needed to.
Judge your CPV four ways instead of one:
- By format: Shorts views and CTV views are not the same unit of value.
- By hour and day: most accounts have a 20-40% intraday price swing.
- By placement quality: mobile app inventory drags CPV down and outcomes with it.
- By frequency band: the eighth impression to the same user costs the same and returns less.
Cheaper views are not automatically better
It is easy to cut CPV by 40% by buying only Shorts and app inventory. That is not efficiency, it is a change of product. The honest measure is cost per qualified view: view-through rate held flat, completion rate held flat, and the downstream conversion rate unchanged. If those three hold and the price fell, the saving is real.
A quick self-check
- Pull the last 30 days by hour, placement and format, not by campaign.
- Find the 20% of spend with the highest CPV and ask what it bought that the cheapest 20% did not.
- Check average frequency per user per week. Above roughly 6, the marginal view is usually overpriced.
- Compare in-app placements against the rest on completion rate before you defend their CPV.
These figures are directional ranges drawn from typical US buying patterns, not audited industry data. Your own account data is the only benchmark that settles the question.