In digital advertising, there are many metrics you can analyze, from impressions to cost per click and conversions. These KPIs help marketers understand what works, what doesn’t, and what is the return on investment. One of those crucial metrics is Cost per thousand, which measures the advertising costs per number of impressions.
6 +
Templates using this KPI
3 +
Integrations using this KPI
The cost per thousand (CPM), also called cost per mille, is a marketing term used to know the price that 1,000 advertisement impressions on one web page cost. The CPM model is helpful in measuring the efficiency of advertising and determining how much you pay per click.
To calculate your CPM rate, you need to take the total cost of your online advertising divided by the total number of impressions and times 1000. For example, if your ad campaign costs you $500 for 100 000 impressions, your CPM would be $5.
It all depends on your industry, advertising budget, and CPM pricing model, but the average online advertising cost per thousand impressions an advertiser pays would be around $3-$10. if you pay less than $3 for one thousand impressions, you probably have a pretty good CPM.
As with any other CPC campaign, if you pay too much for an ad and these advertising costs make your ads' ROI bad, then it should be improved. If you use ad campaigns for brand awareness, it can be harder to calculate; however, ensure your ads do not cost too much just for advertisement impressions.
Reports give you a good view of all your online marketing strategy metrics and overall online performance. Your CPM advertising metrics can be added to a few KPI templates :
Social media advertising template
This template is filled with metrics for all your social media online advertising, from LinkedIn ad placements, Facebook ads costs, demographics metrics, YouTube video ads, average CPC, and more.
PPC report template
Get the best out of your ad campaign. From social media to AdWords and other ad networks, measure your results with this awesome digital marketing report which helps you track important metrics and optimize your efforts.
Ecommerce report template
A report with all the most critical metrics for your eCommerce business site. Measure your conversion rate, the average acquisition cost, the total number of sales, cost per click, ads cost, ad spend, and revenue from your marketing channels.
Optimize your cost per thousand with these best practices.
Track this KPI with other metrics
It’s important to track other digital marketing metrics alongside your CPM, such as click-through rate (CTR), number of clicks, ad costs, ad views, ad impressions, and conversion rate. This way, you can better overview what works best and why. For example, an ad campaign can have a meager cost per thousand and a very low click-through rate, which doesn’t mean great results for your bottom line.
Optimization of your ad campaigns
User experience is crucial to get a reasonable cost for a thousand impressions and there are a few cost-effective methods to improve it. For example, optimize your marketing campaigns, choose the right target audience, A/B test with search engines and type of ads (display ads, social media ads). You can also optimize the copy to improve the brand awareness and clicks you get.
Make sure your ads have a good placement
With web ads and particularly display ads, placement is crucial; make sure your ads are not at the very bottom of pages or in a weird ad placement where the audience can’t correctly see your ad.
Conversion Rate
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
Return on marketing investment
Traffic sources
Cost per acquisition (CPA)
Cost per lead (CPL)
Unique visitor
Bounce rate
Average time on page
Keyword Difficulty
Pageviews
Domain rating
Domain authority
Backlinks
Referring domains
