A single instance in which an advertisement is displayed on a screen, whether or not the viewer notices or clicks it.
A basic measure of ad delivery, not necessarily attention or engagement.
Short and sweet:
A single instance in which an advertisement is displayed on a screen, whether or not the viewer notices or clicks it.
A basic measure of ad delivery, not necessarily attention or engagement.
See also: Impression, Reach, Frequency
An ad impression is recorded whenever a specific advertisement loads and displays on a person’s screen, functioning as the advertising-specific version of the broader impression metric used across both paid and organic content. Advertisers are billed under several different models, and in a cost-per-thousand-impressions arrangement, the ad impression count itself directly determines the price paid, regardless of whether anyone actually clicked. Because an ad impression only confirms that the ad loaded, not that a person consciously noticed it, viewability measurement has become an increasingly important complementary metric for judging whether impressions actually had a real chance of being seen.
A single banner ad loading on a news website counts as one ad impression, regardless of whether the reader’s eyes ever actually land on it before scrolling further down.
Advertisers buying space on a platform like YouTube are often billed per thousand of these, a pricing model known as CPM that pays for exposure rather than clicks.
A billboard company might estimate a million of these a month for a highway sign, a rough count based on traffic data rather than any proof drivers actually looked up.
