Understanding Ad Impressions

Neil Patel
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Author: Neil Patel | Co Founder of NP Digital & Owner of Ubersuggest
Published October 22, 2024
A graphic that says Understanding Ad Impressions.

Ad impressions are a key metric in digital advertising. At the simplest level, this measurement represents how many times your ad is shown to users. Every time your ad pops up—whether it’s on a website, a social media feed, or a mobile app—it counts as an impression. 

“Ad impressions are a great way to gauge the reach and visibility of our campaigns,” says Jared Silverman, Senior Director of Paid Search at NP Digital. “By tracking impressions, we can assess whether our ads are getting in front of the right audiences at scale. They’re especially useful for upper-funnel goals, such as brand awareness and driving initial interest.”

But here’s the kicker: just because your ads get seen doesn’t mean they’re effective. Impressions only track how often an ad is shown, not how often people notice or click on it.

Confused? Don’t worry. I’ll explain how to use ad impressions to measure your success.

Key Takeaways

  • Ad impressions are useful for measuring visibility by showing how often an ad is shown to users on screens across various platforms.
  • Understanding the difference between served and viewable impressions can help marketers assess ad performance and visibility more accurately.
  • Lots of impressions foster more awareness of a brand, making it more likely that viewers of the ads will recognize and remember it. 
  • It’s critical to analyze ad impressions alongside other metrics like clicks and conversions. Doing so provides context into how effective a campaign is across the board and helps marketers identify where tactics can be improved or optimized for maximum impact. 
  • Optimizing ad placements and targeting relevant keywords can drive up impressions and engagement.

Table of Contents

What Are Ad Impressions?

An ad impressions report on SproutSocial.

Think of ad impressions like a billboard on the side of a highway or an ad on a bus stop shelter—the more people drive or walk by and see it, the more impressions they get. But just because they saw the ad doesn’t mean they’ll request information about your product or service, or even register it.

So, why do ad impressions matter? They help you understand your ad’s potential reach. The higher the number, the more people are exposed to your message. 

But they’re just one piece of the puzzle. As Jared Silverman puts it, “Pairing them with other metrics like engagement rates or conversions helps us fine-tune targeting, adjust bidding strategies, and ensure that our ad spend is being optimized for performance and efficiency. In essence, impressions give us a pulse check on reach, but their true value comes when analyzed in context with other KPIs.”

Knowing what an ad impression is and isn’t is key to your business success. In short: it’s how viewers respond that drives the real value of your ad campaigns.

Are Ad Impressions the Same as Clicks and Reach?

Understanding how to calculate ad impressions means understanding clicks and reach, which are not the same as impressions. 

  • As mentioned above, every time an ad pops up on someone’s screen, it counts as an ad impression, whether or not they engage with it.
  • Clicks track how many times users actually interact with your ad by clicking on it. This is a solid indicator that users are interested in your product—and hopefully leads to more conversions. 
  • Reach measures the total number of unique users who have seen your ad within a specific period. Unlike impressions, reach indicates how many individuals your ad has been exposed to, helping you measure the extent of your audience.

Basically, impressions indicate visibility, clicks measure engagement, and reach shows audience size.

Types of Ad Impressions

Different types of ad impressions provide different information on how your ads are displayed and consumed. 

The most common types are served impressions and viewable impressions. Understanding what these terms mean can provide more clarity into your ad performance.

Served Impressions

A served impression refers to when an ad is shown to a user on a device. But here’s the catch: just because it’s served doesn’t mean the user actually saw it.

It’s like putting a flyer through a mail slot. The flyer made it into someone’s home, but the person who lives there may have thrown it out without even looking at it.

That’s why understanding ad impression meanings is critical: Served impressions give you a sense of how many times your ad has appeared in front of viewers, but they’re not an indicator of actual visibility. For that, you’ll want to look at metrics like viewable impressions.

Viewable Impressions

Viewable impressions are the next level of ad impressions. Unlike served impressions, which only track if an ad was delivered, viewable impressions give you a more accurate sense of whether your ad was actually seen.

The Media Rating Council (MRC) considers an ad “viewable” when at least 50% of it is visible on a screen for at least one second (for display ads, or 30% for large display ads) or two seconds (for video ads).

This metric is critical for marketers who want to make sure ads are meeting accepted standards so they have more chance of making an impact. 

Why Are Ad Impressions Important?

You want to make the most of every dollar in your marketing budget, especially when you’re trying to build up brand awareness and expand your campaign reach. While clicks and conversions might seem like better metrics, ad impressions are useful for giving you a broader picture of ad performance and the return on your investment. 

Here are some useful insights ad impressions can provide: 

  • Visibility: The more impressions your ad has, the more exposure your brand gets, which is a key factor in reaching a larger audience.
  • Brand awareness: A large number of impressions can cultivate greater brand awareness. Even if people don’t click on your ad the first time they see it, over time, they’ll notice it. Repeated exposure can reinforce your brand in their minds, paving the way for potential future engagement.
  • Budget tracking: Monitoring your ad impressions helps you ensure that you’re getting the most bang for your ad bucks. If you’re seeing high impressions but minimal engagement, it may be a sign that you need to make some changes or spend that budget on other channels.
  • Optimization: Speaking of audiences, impressions can tell you if your ad is hitting the right target. In some platforms, like Google Ads and Facebook Ads, you can see what countries impressions are coming from, which can help uncover ways to refine ad placement, timing, and other factors to improve your results.
  • Campaign insights: Analyzing how impressions are paired with clicks can help you hone in on how effective your ad is at capturing attention. If you’re seeing lots of impressions but few clicks, it might be time to redo ad copy or images.
  • Click-through rate (CTR) calculation: You need the total number of impressions to figure out your CTR, a key metric for measuring the effectiveness of your campaign.

How to Optimize Ad Impressions

Just because you’re getting a lot of ad impressions doesn’t’ mean you’re getting the most out of your campaign. Your ads might be seen by the wrong audiences or your copy might not draw people in. 

Optimizing ads is where the real magic happens. These strategies can help improve ad placement, ensure viewability, and encourage more clicks.

1. Target Relevant Keywords

Using relevant keywords in your ads ensures your ads are served to users who are actively searching for content related to your products or services. This helps you reach audiences who are more likely to click on your ad and potentially make a purchase. It also helps ensure you aren’t wasting your ad budget on impressions that aren’t at all interested in what you’re offering.

You can use a tool like Ubersuggest to research keywords and get ideas for your ad copy.

An Ubersuggest report on the keyword Midwest Native Plants.

2. Write Engaging Banner Ads

Banner ads don’t have a lot of space, so you better make sure the copy is compelling! A well-written ad should resonate with your audience enough to make them curious—or at least attract their attention.

A Benadryl banner ad.

3. Optimize Bidding and Ads Placement

Adjusting your bidding strategy by optimizing bids for specific keywords or audiences can ensure your ads are visible to the right segments. Similarly, strategically choosing ad placements can help you get more out of your campaigns by ensuring your ads align with your audience’s behaviors and appear in high-visibility areas. 

How to Monitor the Performance of Your Ad Impressions

Of course, you’ll want to keep track of your ad impressions to monitor their effectiveness and make adjustments as needed. Google Ad Manager and Facebook Ads Manager both provide you with impressions as well as other metrics. You can use their features to filter or customize data to get more specific insights.

For example, you could look for which ads have the highest conversion rates to get tips on what resonated with audiences. You can also look for trends in impressions versus clicks: less clicks might suggest you need to reevaluate the ad. 

A tool like my Google Ads Grader can instantly show you key metrics like cost and CTR as well as point you toward areas of improvement.  

Neil Patel's Ads Grader.

Over time, tracking ad impressions and their patterns can help you refine your strategies for maximum impact.

FAQs

What is an ad impression?

An ad impression refers to the number of times an ad appears on a user’s screen.

What is the difference between ad impressions and ad reach?

Ad impressions measure the number of times an ad appears on a user’s screen. Ad reach refers to the total number of unique users who have seen an ad within a specific time frame.

How do you calculate ad impressions?

To calculate ad impressions, simply look at the dashboard of your ad analytics tool (like Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Facebook Ads, etc), which will tell you how many impressions each ad got.

What is considered a good number of ad impressions per day?

What is considered a good number of ad impressions to get every day depends on many factors, including industry, target audience, and campaign goals. However, a few thousand impressions per day is a good place to start.

Conclusion

Ad impressions can be a useful tool for assessing the impact and value of your ad campaigns. Just remember, it takes more than raw numbers to drive success. Instead, you should also take metrics like clicks and conversion rates into account.
Ads are one way to expand your brand visibility online alongside organic reach. By continually monitoring your ad impressions, you can optimize your campaigns and make paid media a successful part of your overall strategy.

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Neil Patel

About the author:

Co Founder of NP Digital & Owner of Ubersuggest

He is the co-founder of NP Digital. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

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Neil Patel

source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/ad-impressions/