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About

Cost Per Mille (CPM), or Cost Per Thousand Impressions, is the fundamental currency of brand awareness campaigns. Unlike performance metrics that track clicks, CPM focuses on visibility. This tool is critical for media buyers who need to reverse-engineer their budgets: calculating how many impressions a specific budget will yield, or determining the maximum CPM bid to stay within a total spend limit. Accurate CPM calculations prevent budget overruns in high-volume programmatic advertising environments.

cpm advertising media buying impressions

Formulas

The CPM model links three variables. Depending on your knowns, the logic shifts:

CPM = (Total CostImpressions) × 1000
Total Cost = CPM × Impressions1000
Impressions = Total Cost × 1000CPM

Reference Data

Advertising PlatformAverage CPM ($)Primary AudienceFormat Focus
Facebook Ads$14.40B2C / GeneralSocial Feed
Instagram$13.20Gen Z / MillennialsVisual / Reels
LinkedIn$33.80B2B / ProfessionalNewsfeed / InMail
Google Display$2.80Broad ReachBanners
Google Search$38.40High IntentText Ads
YouTube$9.60Video ConsumersPre-roll / Bumper
Pinterest$30.00ShoppersVisual Pins
TikTok$10.00Gen ZShort Video
Twitter (X)$6.46News / Real-timeFeed
Amazon Ads$8.10ShoppersSponsored Products

Frequently Asked Questions

CPM is ideal for brand awareness and visibility. If your goal is to have as many people see your message as possible (e.g., a new product launch), CPM is more cost-effective. CPC is better for direct response where you want specific actions.
Not necessarily. Cheap impressions often come from low-quality placements or bot traffic (banner blindness). A higher CPM on a premium site like the New York Times might deliver more brand lift than a low CPM on a gaming app.
eCPM is used when you are paying via CPC or CPA but want to compare it to a CPM buy. The formula is (Total Earnings / Total Impressions) * 1000. It normalizes revenue across different pricing models.
LinkedIn allows for highly granular B2B targeting (Job Title, Company Size, Industry). You are paying a premium for the certainty that your ad is reaching decision-makers, which justifies the higher cost compared to broad consumer networks.