Impressions

An impression is a count of displays, not of people. One person who sees the same ad three times creates three impressions. The number of different people reached is a separate measure, usually called reach. A campaign with a high number of impressions and a low reach is showing the same few people the same message many times.

Being displayed is also not the same as being seen. An ad loaded at the bottom of a long page, or a search result far down the list, can count as an impression even if nobody scrolled to it. That is why impressions are best used as the base for other measures, such as click-through rate, rather than as a result in themselves.

How it works

Each platform has its own counting rules. In Google Search Console, an impression is generally recorded when your link appears in a search result the user loaded, with specific rules for carousels and results that need scrolling or expanding. Ad platforms count an impression each time an ad is served, and many also report "viewable" impressions that meet a minimum visible area and time.

Social platforms count impressions or views when a post appears in someone's feed. Because the rules differ, impressions from different platforms should not be added together as if they were one measure.

There are edge cases in search data. When data is grouped by property, Search Console counts your site once per search even if several of your pages appear, while data grouped by page counts each page separately, so the two totals differ. A page can earn impressions for queries you never targeted, some of them irrelevant. Very rare queries may be hidden for privacy, so the total by query can be lower than the overall total. On ad platforms, impressions can be inflated by placements in apps or on sites you would not choose, which is why reviewing where display ads appeared is worthwhile. To check your own visibility trend, open the Search Console Performance report, switch on impressions and average position, and compare the last three months with the three before.

Example

A local accountant sees in Search Console that a guide to tax deadlines gets 10,000 impressions a month in Google but few clicks. The impressions prove the page is relevant enough to show for many searches, mostly at positions eight to twelve. The owner improves the guide and its internal links, aiming to move it higher where those same impressions are more likely to turn into visits.

Three months later the guide's average position has moved up, impressions are roughly stable, and clicks have more than doubled. The owner also notices impressions for a few unrelated searches about tax software, which bring no clicks. Rather than chasing them, the accountant ignores those queries, because they will never bring clients for an accounting practice.

Why it matters for your business

Impressions show visibility: whether your pages, ads and posts are being shown at all. A sudden fall in search impressions can signal an indexing problem or a lost ranking before you notice it in enquiries. On their own they are a vanity number, because display does not pay bills. Read them next to clicks, organic traffic and conversions to see whether visibility is turning into business.

Common mistakes

• Reporting impressions as if they were people reached.
• Adding impressions from search, social and display together when each platform counts them differently.
• Paying for ad impressions without checking how many were actually viewable.
• Panicking about falling impressions without checking clicks, which may be stable if lost impressions were low-value positions.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between impressions and reach?

Impressions count every time content is displayed, including repeats to the same person. Reach counts how many different people saw it at least once. If 1,000 people each saw a post twice, that is 2,000 impressions and a reach of 1,000.

Why do I have many impressions but few clicks?

Common reasons are low positions, listings that do not match what searchers want, weak titles and descriptions, or search features that answer the question on the results page. Check the average position first, then the wording of your title and description for the queries involved.

What does CPM mean for impressions?

CPM stands for cost per mille, the price an advertiser pays for one thousand impressions. It is a common pricing model for display, video and social ads, where the goal is often visibility. Search ads are more often priced per click instead.