Google Changing a Closely Watched Metric of Its Ads Business
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Alphabet Inc. is changing a closely watched measure of Google’s digital advertising business and adjusting how it accounts for some private stock holdings, a move that will make reported income more volatile.
The main difference is in how Google discloses the performance of its Network business, which runs ads on thousands of third-party websites. This will no longer be reported on a "cost-per-click" basis, or how many times the ads are clicked on. Instead, Google will report changes based on cost per impression -- the number of times the ads are viewed. In the fourth quarter of 2017, Google reported $5 billion in sales from network sites.