Glossary | I | Impressions

What is an impression?

An impression is when a user on a device sees an advertisement. Impression can also be defined as a “view-through”. An impression occurs any time a user opens an application, and an advertisement comes into the user’s view of the screen or for developers, each time their ad is shown is counted as one impression.

Impressions are measured by CPM and eCPM, this is per thousand impressions and refers to how advertisers are charged and how developers are paid for their inventory.

What’s the difference between impressions and clicks?

An impression is every time the advertisement is severed to a user and viewed. A click is a measurement of how many times a user clicks on the advertisement. A click is also known as an engagement term.

Why are impressions important?

Outside of being the most common way advertisers are charged and developers are paid, impressions provide a simple and easy to understand representation of how many people are seeing your ads within a particular campaign, audience segment or channel, that is uniform and doesn’t change across different platforms. Impressions help you to understand the reach of your campaigns and are important when looking at key metrics such as IMPDAU, CPM & IPM.