Impressions

Impressions measure visibility, the top of the funnel. With too few, nothing after it can happen: no clicks, no leads, no revenue. They also set the cost of paid advertising, since many ad platforms charge per thousand impressions.

On their own they say little. A large number with no clicks is attention that was seen and ignored. Impressions only become useful beside the rate at which people respond.

• Find where each channel reports impressions: the ad platform, the social analytics screen, Google Search Console for organic search.
• Track the trend over weeks instead of judging a single day.
• Divide clicks by impressions to get the click-through rate. A fall in that rate with steady impressions points to weak wording or imagery.
• Compare channels, then compare what each one costs per thousand impressions and per click.
• Do not compare platforms too closely. Each defines an impression differently, and some count one only when most of the ad was visible.

An impression is recorded each time something appears on a screen. A LinkedIn post shown in a feed, a banner ad that loads on a page and a link that appears in a Google results page each count as one impression.

The same person can create several impressions. If an ad is shown to one person four times, that is four impressions but one person reached. The number of different people is called reach, and impressions divided by reach gives the average frequency.

• Celebrating reach without checking what followed.
• Counting the same audience twice across channels and calling it growth.