The number of people who see content because distribution was supported by advertising spend.
A measure of audience exposure generated through promoted or sponsored placement.
Short and sweet:
The number of people who see content because distribution was supported by advertising spend.
A measure of audience exposure generated through promoted or sponsored placement.
See also: Organic Reach, Reach, Paid Media
Paid reach counts the number of unique people who saw a piece of content specifically because a business paid to put it in front of them, separate from anyone who encountered the same post organically through a follow or a share. It’s a useful metric for judging whether ad spend is actually expanding a brand’s visibility beyond its existing audience, rather than mostly reaching people who already follow the account. Because paid reach can be bought at scale, it’s often compared against organic reach to see how dependent overall visibility has become on continued ad spend.
A brand like Coca-Cola boosting a holiday ad on Facebook is buying paid reach, guaranteeing the video appears in front of a specific number of targeted feeds regardless of organic algorithm luck.
Since Instagram’s organic reach has declined sharply over the years, many small businesses now depend on this kind of paid exposure just to get their posts seen by more than a fraction of their own followers.
A movie studio launching a trailer might combine massive paid exposure across YouTube and TikTok with a smaller organic push, guaranteeing millions of views on opening weekend rather than hoping content goes viral naturally.
