Impression

An impression is one time that your ad or search result is shown to someone. Every time your ad appears on a screen, the platform counts an impression, whether the person clicks or not.

What impressions do and do not tell you

Impressions measure visibility: how often your message came into view. They are the basis of many other figures, because your ctr is divided against the number of impressions and your cpm is calculated per thousand impressions. In themselves, however, impressions say nothing about interest or result. Ten million impressions sounds impressive, but if no one clicks or requests anything, you have mainly bought air. It is a vanity metric the moment you start steering campaigns on it.

Why impressions are not a goal

Many advertisers get lost in reach and impression figures because they look big and reassuring. At Customer Impact we deliberately see through that. An impression is only worth something if it leads, somewhere in the chain, to a click, a lead and ultimately revenue. For a B2B service provider it does not matter how many people saw your logo, but how many of the right people got in touch. That is why we steer on requests and on roas, not on impressions as a final figure.

Using impressions wisely

Impressions are useful as a diagnosis. An ad with many impressions but a low CTR tells you that the message or the ad placement is not landing. If you barely get impressions, your budget or bid is too low, or your audience is too narrow. That way you use the figure to adjust, while keeping your real ambition, namely customers and revenue, front and center.