Impressions
Every time one piece of content is shown to a user (whether it's organic content or ads), it's called an "Impression."
It's called impression because of traditional newspaper advertising. 3000 "impressions" meant your content would be printed in 3000 newspapers.
"Pay per impression" is the main pricing model for most interruption-based platforms like Meta, LinkedIn, Reddit, X, etc (unlike search-based ones like Google, that usually charges per click).
We often use "Cost Per Thousand Impressions" (or CPM) to measure how expensive it is to display your ads 1,000 times. You can calculate yours with our CPM calculator.
Frequently Asked Questions
Impressions count total views (one person can generate multiple impressions). Reach counts unique people. If 100 people each see your ad 3 times, you have 100 reach and 300 impressions.
Not necessarily. High impressions with low engagement means wasted budget. What matters is impressions to the right audience combined with good engagement (clicks, conversions).
1,000 impressions means your ad was displayed 1,000 times. This is the standard unit for CPM (Cost Per Mille) pricing: if your CPM is $10, you pay $10 per 1,000 impressions. Use our CPM calculator to see how your costs scale.