what does cost per mille cpm mean 
cost per mille cpm mille is latin for thousand is a pricing model used in digital marketing it is the average cost a company pays for 1 000 advertisement impressions an impression occurs when a consumer sees an advertisement cpm is a metric generally used in two ways it can help companies measure how efficient their advertising is by telling them how much money is paid for 1 000 views of their website ad and it can represent how much a digital publisher charges for advertising space understanding cost per mille cpm companies traditionally had only a few options to advertise their products and services notably through print radio and television over time these options grew to include various types of online advertising several metrics have been created to help companies determine how well their advertising works one of these is cost per mille thousand cost per mille is the most common method for pricing web ads in digital marketing this method relies on impressions which are defined as an advertisement displayed when a page is viewed impressions are generally considered ad views because it is likely they are seen when the page loads viewers may not do more than glance at it but it is possible it still created awareness or made an impression an impression measures how many times an ad is displayed on a site impressions are counted and metrics can be generated from the count for example many website owners charge advertisers a set fee for every 1 000 impressions of an ad the click through rate ctr measures whether an ad was clicked on representing the percentage of people who saw and acted on it advertisers frequently measure the success of a cpm campaign by its ctr an advertisement that receives two clicks for every 100 impressions has a 2 ctr but you can t measure an advertisement s success by ctr alone because an ad that a reader views but doesn t click still may have an impact cost per mille cpm vs cost per click cpc vs cost per acquisition cpa cpm represents one of several methods used to price website ads it is generally used with other metrics to help marketers analyze effectiveness and costs these include companies focused less on mass appeal and more on promoting a product to a niche audience gravitate toward cpc or cpa advertising because they have to pay only when visitors click through to their sites or purchase the advertised products special considerationsthere can be confusion between two crucial social media terms impressions and views the term impression refers to the presence of an ad or other content on a social media user s screen a view on the other hand refers to the time a user engages with any digital content like a video the number of ad impressions can differ from the number of visitors to the website displaying the ad an ad might receive placement in two locations on a website such as a horizontal banner across the top of the page and a vertical side banner beside the page s text the advertiser pays for two impressions per page view in this scenario rates for social media advertising tend to be higher and can vary depending on the platform the following is a list of average social media advertising costs on different social media sites website publishers generally like cpm advertising because they re paid for just displaying ads in some cases a website needs robust traffic to make decent money from cpm ads because rates are relatively low different pricing methods are more appropriate for some ad campaigns than others like the ones mentioned above cpm makes the most sense for a campaign focused on heightening brand awareness or delivering a specific message the click through rate matters less in this case because the exposure from having a prominent ad on a high traffic website helps promote a company s brand name or message even if visitors don t click on the ad 