The term “Impression,” denotes the number of times a given piece of content is viewed.
We can use a fairly generic definition, such as the one above, as today the term is used in multiple contexts, especially on the social side (think for a moment about story views on Instagram).
But although the term “Impression” is used in multiple contexts today, it is traditionally linked to the advertising context. Here, in fact, it goes to indicate the number of times a particular ad is viewed.
This metric is particularly important because it is also the basis of one of the most widely used ad buying models, that, precisely, for Impression.
It, usually referred to by the acronym CPM, indicates how much it costs to get a thousand impressions of an ad on a specific channel.
Usually the CPM-based buying model is used when creating awareness campaigns that target the upper part of the funnel: it is important, in fact, at this stage that the brand is able to reach as many users as possible. Here the campaign should not be focused on a particular goal (e.g., sales), but should serve to acquire new traffic and attract new users in order to deploy effective engagement strategies.
