CPM Calculator

Calculate your Cost Per Mille (CPM) - the cost of 1,000 ad impressions. This metric helps you understand how much you're paying to reach 1,000 people with your advertising.

CPM can vary from channel to channel quite dramatically, so it's important to understand your benchmarks and monitor performance as your campaigns are running. If you need to bring your CPM down, try a stricter bid strategy or broaden your targeting. However, both strategies listed do come with tradeoffs when applied to your campaigns.

Calculate Your CPM

Your CPM Result

Enter your cost and impressions to see your CPM

What is CPM?

CPM stands for "Cost Per Mille" (mille means thousand in Latin). It represents the cost of showing your advertisement to 1,000 people.

Whilst it's nice to use the fancy 'mille', you can always just say cost per 1000 impressions.

Formula: CPM = (Total Cost ÷ Total Impressions) × 1,000

CPM is a key metric for measuring the cost-effectiveness of your advertising campaigns, especially for brand awareness and display advertising campaigns.

CPM Benchmarks

Please take these benchmarks with a pinch of salt. CPM can vary dramatically within each channel, these are just aa rough guide for you.

Google Display Network:$2-5
Facebook/Meta Ads:$5-12
YouTube Ads:$4-10
LinkedIn Ads:$8-20
TikTok Ads:$3-15

*Benchmarks vary significantly by industry and targeting

How To Lower Your CPM

Target specific audiences to improve relevance

Goes against what I previously said, however being more specific can improve CPM, as much as broaden your targeting can also improve CPM

Test different ad creatives and formats

Your better performing ad creatives (higher click-through rates & more engagement) are rewarded by ad platforms with lower CPMs because they contribute to a better user experience on the platform.

Optimize your bidding strategy

Select the right bid strategy based on your goal. For CPM you want to choose a bid strategy that focuses on impressions, such as "Max impressions" or "Target CPM".

Exclude audiences that don't convert

Continuos optimization is key to success. Regularly check for ways you can improve you audiences, use the data at your disposal to make informed decisions.

Monitor frequency to avoid ad fatigue

Whilst the goal is maximizing the number of impressions for the cheapest price. We don't want to bombard the audience with the same ad 000's of times.

Choose the right placement and timing

Different placements within one channel have different CPM rates. Once you are aware of this, you can make more informed decisions on where to place your ads.

A/B test different audience segments

Higher value audiences such as 1st party data, are going to be more expensive, compared to wider reaching broader audiences. Factor this in when setting CPM goals.

Improve ad relevance scores

Ad platforms reward ads that are more relevant to the audience with lower CPMs. Ensure your ad copy and visuals resonate with your target audience and that they are engaging with the content.

CPM vs Other Metrics

CPM vs CPC

CPM measures impression costs, while CPC measures cost per click. Use CPM for brand awareness, CPC for traffic generation.

CPM vs CPA

CPM focuses on reach and exposure, while CPA measures conversion costs. CPM is top-funnel, CPA is bottom-funnel.

When to Use CPM

Best for brand awareness campaigns, product launches, reaching large audiences, and building brand recognition.