Impressions Do Not Equal Reach: Understanding This Important KPI to Properly Measure Results
Have you ever been inundated with trendy terminology or abbreviations? Or run into partners who seem to use certain terms interchangeably making it difficult to accurately measure your data? You’re Not Alone! Here are a few tips that will help you navigate two of the most common terms and turn them into powerful, but better yet, useful metrics. Impressions vs Reach Recently, I’ve heard a few times where partners and colleagues used these words as equals when in-fact they are very different. Knowing these differences can help you understand the impact of your campaign insights and results. Impressions: are the number of times your ad or content is served or displayed. Impressions can be derived from a variety of channels including print, social, TV, digital mediums, radio or billboard.
Reach: is the unique number of people who consumed content. Consumption of content can take place in many forms, but it is important to remember reach is unique to an individual. Here are few examples of how to calculate these: Print / Direct Mail – Your marketing piece was distributed 50,000 times this would be 50,000 impressions. However, only 25,000 pieces were picked up and consumed this would mean your reach was only 25,000 or 50% of the total circulation. Digital Media – your banner ad was displayed on a screen 100,000 times this would be your impression count. However, if these impressions were only served to 20,000 people, the reach would be 20,000 and then your average frequency or number of times the ad was served would be 5. Increasing your impressions and reach can drive additional brand success by increasing your opportunity across a variety of communication channels. The combination of these channels with the use of impression and reach can serve as a way to add insight and analysis to your metrics. Providing you context as to what content, in what manner, when and how often your customers like to engage with your brand.
As a full-service advertising and marketing agency, Eleven Twenty-Three specializes in using metrics such as Impressions and Reach (as well as many more) to make data-driven decisions regarding your brand’s media campaigns making our media buying second to none. If terms like these have your head spinning, don’t hesitate to reach out to a member or our team to discover how we can help you use data to grow your business.