Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) is a pricing model in digital advertising where advertisers are charged for every thousand impressions or views of their online ad.
An impression is counted each time an ad is served to a user, regardless of whether the user interacts with the ad. For example, if an advertiser pays 1,000 for 1 million impressions, the CPM would be 1.
The CPM model can be effective when the goal of a campaign is to increase brand awareness or visibility since it ensures that your ad will be seen by a large number of people. However, if the aim is to encourage users to take specific actions like signing up for a program or making a purchase, cost-per-click (CPC) models might offer better results as they charge only when users interact with your ads.
Benefits:
- Wide Reach – Ideal for campaigns aiming at boosting brand exposure.
- Easy Calculation – Makes budgeting and forecasting easier due its simplicity.
- Better Visibility – High impression count helps keep your brand top-of-mind among audiences.
Downsides:
- No Action Required – You pay for impressions whether or not viewers interact with your ads.
- Less Targeted – May result in lower engagement rates compared to other models like CPC.
- Potential Overexposure – Too many repeated exposures may lead to audience fatigue and negative sentiment towards the brand/advertiser over time.
Some CPM Examples
The cost per thousand impressions (CPM) on Facebook ads can vary significantly depending on various factors such as the industry, target audience, ad quality and competition. However, here are some approximate figures:
- The average CPM for all industries on Facebook is around $11.20.
- For the apparel industry, the average CPM could be approximately $6.45.
- In the auto sector, it might be about $16.
- For education-related ads, it’s roughly around $7.
- E-commerce businesses see an average CPM of about $10 to 15 range typically.
For example , if you’re running a campaign with a budget of say 500 in the e-commerce space which has an average CPM of say 12 , then your ad would get approximately 41,666 impressions [ (500/12)*1000 ].
Please note these are just averages and actual costs can fluctuate based on a variety of factors including time of year (holiday seasons tend to have higher competition hence higher costs), specific targeting criteria among other things.