What's The Value of an Impression?

Impressions are an easy-to-track metric that’s often associated with brand exposure. Some marketing teams will even use impressions to determine a campaign’s influence on a new deal.

For example, an attribution tool might provide some data like “X employees who work at company Y saw Z impressions which had an influence on the most recent deal from company Y.”

However, I’d argue that impressions might present as more of a correlation than causation. Many big ad platforms register impressions when the viewer most likely doesn’t even notice the ad. For example:

• LinkedIn - “…we record an impression of your Sponsored Content in your LinkedIn Campaign Manager reporting whenever the ad is at least 50 percent in view on a device screen or browser window for at least one second on desktop or 300 milliseconds on mobile.”

• Google Ads - “In some cases, only a section of your ad may be shown.”

• Meta - “In a few cases when it can't be determined whether ads are on screen, such as on feature mobile phones, impressions are counted when ads are delivered to devices.”

Instead of reporting on impressions, I use the below metrics to report on actual content consumption or engagement when sharing updates with my clients:

• Engagements - This usually takes the form of a click, but doesn’t necessarily have to be a click to the landing page. Chances are if people are clicking on an ad, they’re showing some level of interest.

• Completion Percentage - If people are watching video ads through to the end, they’re definitely consuming the ad content.

• Dwell Time - This metric is unique to LinkedIn, but represents how long an ad is in view on a user’s screen. This can indicate if people are reading the copy on a promoted post.

These metrics can provide a better indicator that an audience is actually looking at and considering ad content instead of simply scrolling past it. There can be more value in understanding if people are actually reading copy, or watching a video, compared to an impression that’s recorded because a portion of an ad was shown in the bottom corner of a website.

Have questions, considerations, or critiques? I’d love to hear them! If you’re reading this via email, just hit respond. Otherwise, you can find me on LinkedIn.