We’ll answer these questions soon. Let’s look at the history of CPM ads.
What’s CPM in advertising? Why should you care? And what are they anyway? Well, now we resolve to answer all your queries or point you in the right direction to find out more information. We’ve included some advertiser examples (where available) for your convenience. So here it goes…
DoubleClick initially introduced CPM advertising back in 1997 to help advertisers pay only when someone clicks on their ad instead of paying upfront for impressions which could not be tracked by the standard banner ads back then; you know how it was before today’s smart display tech even existed.
CPM was popular for many years among advertisers looking to experiment with display ads or those not ready to leap, paying only when their ads are clicked on (cost per click/CPC). Before CPC came along, CPM helped pave the way for brands and their ad agencies by bringing campaigns that revolved around engagement metrics instead of views or impressions, which gave advertisers a better return on investment today. Of course, this does not suggest that you cannot use CPM advertising in conjunction with other types of digital advertising like, say, Facebook ads which can help boost your brand awareness!
Nowadays, both platforms have grown significantly alongside one another, making them ideal tools for helping promote your content, whether it’s video, images, or text. An industry report (Criteo/DoubleClick) found that CPC ads only make up about 25% of all digital advertising! What this tells you is that marketers are diversifying their ad spend across multiple platforms like Facebook ads and search engine marketing which can help increase awareness for your brand; it’s hard to ignore the results these strategies brought for some brands like Nasty Gal back in 2015 (see blog post).
By diversifying your ad spend, you’re also lessening your risk by betting on multiple horses.
That’s not to say that CPM ads are going away anytime soon as they’ll always have a place in the market. Still, only time will tell how things will ultimately play out, especially with Google introducing more cost-per-click options for advertisers starting this year. We’ll talk more about these changes later. Let’s jump into some examples of CPM ads before moving on to the next chapter, pricing! Here goes…
What are Some Examples of What’s CPM in Advertising?
CPM ads are, in fact, everywhere, whether it’s in your social feeds like Facebook or Instagram (remember all those carousel image ads?), on websites, pop-ups (ugh!), etc. Let’s focus instead on the social side of things which will give you a better idea of how CPM can benefit your brand…
CPM advertising might seem new to many, but it has been around for quite some time where you could experiment with display ads back when banner ads were king! Today, however, there are so many options for marketers looking to advertise their products and services via social media platforms like Facebook, where they’re constantly showcasing different types of ad units, including slideshow photo ads, video ads, carousel image ads, lead forms that show up in your feed, etc. They can even show up as sponsored stories which you see when one of your friends likes the product page or posts about it on their wall!
What makes Facebook ads so popular is that they give marketers much freedom to focus on engagement metrics like the number of comments, likes, clicks, views, time spent viewing the ad unit (time-spent), and more. Since there are all types of different ad units available for marketers to experiment with on Facebook’s platform, make sure you test them all out first before committing to showing certain ads in select countries or regions at any given time – it’s all about the results! This gives you an idea of how effective each ad unit is compared to another, especially since some are more costly than others.
For example, let’s say you just launched an online store that sells handmade dog accessories where you want to test out different Facebook ad units before sending them over to your shopping cart page. You might want to start with photo ads that allow marketers to upload TIFF, GIF, BMP, JPEG, PNG files along with links to get the most bang for your buck in terms of engagement metrics since there are no text boxes or carousel options. Another option would be video ads which also contain a link at the end, but these are often good for branding rather than direct response – it’s essential to keep this in mind when planning your ad strategy.
On top of this, you can always run tests on Facebook by promoting posts from certain pages so you can see which photos, links, videos, etc., perform the best before landing on a final mix that works for your brand. This is actually how many companies end up finding their winning ad strategies, and it’s free to try whenever you want instead of going all-in right away!
Beside CPM – What else is there?
Besides Facebook ads, there are other options out there like Twitter. They’ve been known to allow marketers to promote tweets, especially if they’re looking to bring awareness to an important product or service update within a specific time frame (for example).
What CPM stands for…
CPM means cost per mille, which means they will charge you every time 1,000 people view your ad, and yes, this is different from CPC (cost per click), which is what you’re used to seeing with Google ads, for example, on their Search Network and Display Network. Again, we’ll talk more about CPM vs. CPC later on.
When it comes to Facebook’s Ads Manager platform, you’ll see this metric labeled as “impressions,” where they will charge you depending on how many times your ad unit has been shown since every impression counts! This is a significant factor in Ad Rank, where Facebook will display your ads in the News Feed based on how relevant they are to each user (like history or behavior targeting). Besides this, there are other metrics worth looking into, such as:
– Click-Through Rate (CTR): o How many people clicked on your ad and landed on the destination page that you’ve chosen.
– Average Cost per Click (Avg. CPC): o This is the average amount you’re paying whenever someone clicks on your ad. Advertisers can set this manually when creating new ad sets, but it’s recommended that you use automatic bidding (Ad Rank) instead.
– View Through Rate (VTR): o How many people have seen your ads, clicked on them, and landed on another site besides yours – Also known as “single view” in Adwords. This metric tells marketers how much exposure their ad was given, which is why so many people continue to run Facebook ads despite bad results due to not putting the right messages out there.
– Ad Engagement Rate (AER): o This is basically how likely people are to react to your ad, which could be by liking it, sharing it, saving it, or clicking on it. This is also an indication of user behavior that can help marketers nail down ad creativity. Still, AER isn’t something you should rely on if you’re trying to generate sales, for example, since CTR still has precedence here even though Facebook’s algorithm favors quality content more than ever before!
– Pages per Session: o This metric shows how many pages each unique user looked at before completing their Facebook session – Telling us how engaged people are with our overall web presence, which is why so many companies continue to invest in social media despite struggling to generate conversions and sales.
– Session Duration: o This is how much time each unique user spent looking at your site before they either bounced or stayed longer than 10 seconds (which is Facebook’s default threshold). If this is high, then it means they’ve found the information that they’re looking for, which is why you want as many people as possible to land on your social media pages if you don’t already have a conversion-focused funnel in place. – % New Sessions: o This tells us how many new visitors we got from running our ads compared to those who are only returning visitors, meaning those who clicked on our ad and nothing more since the last time their friends shared something with them based on what Facebook thinks of as “quality” content. – Virality: o This is the number of times your ad has been shared by people who saw it on Facebook directly compared to those who might have seen it elsewhere on the Internet first before sharing it.
– Clicks on Link Click Thru Rate (CTCLTTR): o How many clicks did you get through people sharing your ads on their timelines? This is why many marketers prefer not to create too much text in their Facebook ad images!
– Impressions per Unique Viewer: o How often has each unique user clicked on your ad thus far, meaning how well was your message crafted (at least based on what they know of you) since some viewers can see more than one version of an ad if multiple friends decided to share it with them.
– Unique Impression Share: o The percentage of times your ad was shown out of the total impressions you’re getting, meaning how well each ad is going over, which can result from targeting or creative issues.
– Engaged Users: o This metric focuses on those who have engaged with your ads through clicking them, saving them, liking them, sharing them, commenting on them, and so forth, thus giving you a good idea of how many people are actively engaging in the content you’re putting out there as opposed to simply seeing it without any tangible results based on their behavior.
– Video Views: o How many times your videos were viewed by others, including those who might have watched it through to the end. This is why video marketing works so well on Facebook since it’s an engaging medium overall, so someones are more likely to view your ads in their news feeds, thus making them cheaper than ever before!
– Click-Through Rate (CTR): o This metric tells you how many times people saw your ad and clicked on it, which means they want to learn more about what you’re doing, which is why CTR is still one of the best gauges to go by when determining your success rate. – Social Impressions: o The number of times each unique user saw your ad in their feed, meaning how often your message was shared with others without any prompting, such as clicking the like button, sharing it with others, or commenting on it personally. – Social Clicks: o How many people clicked on the links you have within your ad, meaning people are engaging with it, which is a good sign for future conversions! – Viral Reach: o This metric tells us how far our ads have spread from just being shared amongst those who already know about us to their friends and beyond. In other words, how effective has your targeting been compared to simply putting ads out there without any “Filter Bubble” based on your interests, like most advertisers end up doing in the long run?
– Negative Feedback Rate (NF): o Anything above 0% means someone was not happy with what they saw enough to complain directly to Facebook, thus giving you valuable feedback that can help shape your overall marketing strategy in the future!
Of this article!- CPC: o This metric tells us how much we’re paying for each click on our ads which is naturally limited to those you already know who are aware of what you’re promoting and with whom you can further shape your marketing strategy as a result. – CPM: o This metric tells us how much we’re paying for impressions, meaning how often people saw your ad without clicking on it directly compared to CPC rates since Facebook favors those who stick around more, but that’s beside the point.
– Post Engagements Rate: o How many times have people liked, commented, or shared your posts thus far, which gives you a good idea of what sort of engagement level you have reached through running specific promotions through Facebook Ads. – Post-Click-Through Rate (PCT): o How many people saw your posts and clicked on them, which is next to impossible nowadays since Facebook favors those who stick around for more extended judging by their algorithm changes, but it’s still worth calculating.
– Followers Gained: o How many new fans you’ve gained through running ads via Facebook Graphs, Insights, or Ads Manager, although this shouldn’t be the first metric you check if you’re trying to determine your overall success rate.
Fans Gained: o How often each unique user liked your page, meaning how well your ads spread throughout your target market through likes alone.
Clicks Gained: o The number of clicks resulting from each unique user liking your page tends to be a good sign for many marketers.
– Post Engagements: o How many people liked, commented on, or shared your posts thus far which is next to impossible nowadays since Facebook favors those who stick around for more extended judging by their algorithm changes, but it’s still worth checking out depending on what sort of promotion you’re running!