Terms

Cost Per Impression

Cost Per Impression (CPI) is the price an advertiser pays each time their advertisement is displayed to a potential customer. Because the cost for a single view is often a fraction of a cent, this metric is more commonly expressed as Cost Per Mille (CPM), which represents the price for one thousand impressions.

Importance of Cost Per Impression in Advertising

Cost Per Impression is crucial for evaluating an ad campaign's reach and cost-effectiveness. It helps marketers determine if a campaign is reaching a large enough audience to justify the expense. This metric is valuable for comparing online advertising against traditional media like television or print.

The metric is vital for campaigns focused on boosting brand awareness over direct sales. For startups or new products, CPI helps build recognition and visibility in the market. It allows advertisers to gauge the efficiency of different channels and optimize their strategy accordingly.

Factors Influencing Cost Per Impression

The cost per impression isn't a fixed number; it's a dynamic metric influenced by a multitude of factors. These variables can range from the audience you're targeting to the time of year, causing rates to fluctuate significantly across different campaigns and platforms.

  • Audience: The specificity of your targeting, including demographics, location, and interests.
  • Quality: The creative appeal of your ad and its relevance to the viewer.
  • Placement: The platform, device, and specific ad location where the impression occurs.
  • Timing: The seasonality and time of day, as competition and user activity fluctuate.

Cost Per Impression vs. Cost Per Mille

While often used interchangeably, Cost Per Impression (CPI) and Cost Per Mille (CPM) differ primarily in their scale of measurement and practical application.

  • CPI: This is the cost for a single ad view. It offers a granular metric useful for comparing digital ads to traditional media. However, its fractional value is less practical for large-scale digital campaigns where enterprises and mid-market companies need standardized metrics for budgeting and reporting.
  • CPM: This metric represents the cost per one thousand impressions, making it the industry standard for digital advertising. It simplifies reporting for large brand awareness campaigns, allowing companies to easily compare costs across different channels, though it does not measure direct engagement.

Strategies to Optimize Cost Per Impression

Optimizing your Cost Per Impression is key to maximizing your advertising budget and campaign reach. By implementing strategic adjustments, you can lower costs while improving ad effectiveness. These strategies focus on enhancing ad quality, refining targeting, and paying only for valuable views.

  • Relevance: Tailor ads to your audience's interests and demographics to boost engagement and lower costs.
  • Creative: Use compelling visuals, copy, and clear calls-to-action to make ads more effective.
  • Targeting: Refine your audience, using broader segments for reach or lookalikes for efficiency.
  • Frequency: Cap how often a user sees your ad to prevent fatigue and wasted spend.
  • Viewability: Use viewable CPM standards to ensure you only pay for impressions that are actually seen.

Analyzing Cost Per Impression Metrics

Analyzing CPI metrics is essential for understanding campaign performance and making data-driven decisions. It allows marketers to evaluate the efficiency of their ad spend in terms of audience reach and exposure. This analysis provides a clear picture of how effectively a campaign is building brand awareness across different channels.

  • Efficiency: Compare costs across different channels to determine the most effective placements.
  • Budgeting: Inform spending decisions and justify budget allocation for campaigns.
  • Goal Alignment: Evaluate performance based on whether the primary goal is brand awareness or direct conversions.

Frequently Asked Questions about Cost Per Impression

Is a lower CPI always a good thing?

Not necessarily. While a low CPI indicates cost-efficient reach, it doesn't guarantee quality impressions. It's crucial to balance cost with audience quality and engagement metrics to ensure your campaign effectively meets its primary objectives, whether that's awareness or eventual conversion.

How does CPI relate to Return on Investment (ROI)?

CPI is an initial cost metric, not a direct measure of ROI. It quantifies the expense of getting your ad seen. To calculate ROI, you must connect these impressions to subsequent actions like clicks, leads, and sales, thereby linking the cost of visibility to actual revenue.

When should I prioritize CPI over Cost Per Action (CPA)?

Focus on CPI for top-of-funnel brand awareness campaigns where maximizing exposure is the goal. Prioritize CPA for bottom-of-funnel campaigns aimed at driving specific, measurable actions like sign-ups or purchases, as it directly ties ad spend to conversions and business outcomes.

Other terms

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Serviceable Obtainable Market

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Sales and Marketing Alignment

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Sales Director

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Outbound Sales

Outbound sales is when reps proactively contact potential customers through cold calls or emails to generate leads and build a sales pipeline.

Outbound Sales

Digital Sales Room

A Digital Sales Room is a private online space where sellers share all relevant content with buyers to streamline the sales cycle.

Digital Sales Room

Follow-up

A follow-up is a communication sent after an initial interaction to continue the conversation, provide more value, or prompt a response.

Follow-up

80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule, or Pareto Principle, posits that 80% of results come from just 20% of the effort. It's a key concept for prioritization.

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Sales Plan Template

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Closed Question

A closed question is a type of query that elicits a simple, often one-word answer like 'yes' or 'no,' or a specific, factual response.

Closed Question

Target Account List

A Target Account List (TAL) is a focused list of high-value companies that a business specifically aims to convert into customers.

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Customer Data Platform (CDP)

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) centralizes customer data from all sources to create a complete, unified profile for each individual customer.

Customer Data Platform (CDP)

Voice Search Optimization

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Voice Search Optimization

SFDC

SFDC stands for Salesforce Dot Com, a popular cloud-based CRM platform that helps companies manage their customer interactions and data.

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Nurture Campaign

A nurture campaign is a series of automated messages designed to build relationships with potential customers and guide them toward a purchase.

Nurture Campaign

Revenue Operations (RevOps)

Revenue Operations (RevOps) is a business function that aligns a company's sales, marketing, and customer service teams to drive predictable revenue.

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Enrichment

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Infrastructure as a Service

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Infrastructure as a Service

Scalability

Scalability is a company's ability to handle increased workloads or market demands without a drop in performance or a spike in costs.

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Psychographics

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Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance (QA) is the systematic process of ensuring a product or service meets specified quality standards from development to delivery.

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HubSpot

HubSpot is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform with tools for marketing, sales, and service, all aimed at helping businesses grow.

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Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) is the predictable income a company expects to receive from its customers over a one-year period.

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Load Testing

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Business Intelligence

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Drip Campaign

A drip campaign is a series of automated messages sent to prospects or customers over time to nurture leads and drive engagement.

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Technographics

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Email Personalization

Email personalization uses subscriber data—like their name, interests, or past behavior—to create highly relevant and targeted email campaigns.

Email Personalization

Sales Compensation

Sales compensation is the total pay a salesperson receives, including salary, commissions, and bonuses, structured to motivate performance.

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AI Sales Script Generator

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Account View Through Rate

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Demographic Segmentation in Marketing

Demographic segmentation divides a market into groups based on traits like age, gender, and income, allowing for more targeted marketing efforts.

Demographic Segmentation in Marketing

Spiff

A spiff is a short-term sales incentive, often a cash bonus, paid directly to a salesperson for selling a specific product or service.

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Product-Led Growth

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Hybrid Sales Model

A hybrid sales model blends traditional and digital sales methods to engage customers across multiple channels and buying preferences.

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Customer Journey Mapping

Customer journey mapping is the process of creating a visual story of your customers' interactions with your brand across all touchpoints.

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Employee Advocacy

Employee advocacy is the promotion of an organization by its staff members, who share positive messages and content through their personal networks.

Employee Advocacy

Electronic Signatures

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Electronic Signatures

Custom API integration

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Custom API integration

Revenue Intelligence

Revenue intelligence is the process of collecting and analyzing customer data to provide insights that help sales teams make smarter decisions.

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Deal Closing

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User Testing

User testing involves observing real users interact with a product to identify usability issues and improve the overall user experience.

User Testing

B2B Marketing Channels

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Lead Qualification

Lead qualification is the process of determining which prospects are most likely to become paying customers based on predefined criteria.

Lead Qualification

Lead Qualification Process

The lead qualification process is how you determine which prospects are most likely to become customers by evaluating them against specific criteria.

Lead Qualification Process

Outbound Leads

Outbound leads are potential customers a business proactively contacts through outreach like cold calls, emails, or social media.

Outbound Leads

Video Hosting

Video hosting is a service that allows users to upload, store, and share video content online, making it accessible for playback anywhere.

Video Hosting

Marketing Budget Breakdown

A marketing budget breakdown is a detailed plan that allocates your total marketing funds across various channels, campaigns, and activities.

Marketing Budget Breakdown

Soft Sell

A soft sell is a low-pressure sales tactic that uses subtle persuasion and relationship-building to gently guide customers toward a purchase.

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Adobe Analytics

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Robotic Process Automation

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Robotic Process Automation

Buying Committee

A buying committee is a group of stakeholders within an organization who are jointly responsible for making major purchasing decisions.

Buying Committee

Direct Mail

Direct mail is a marketing method where businesses send physical promotional materials directly to potential customers' mailboxes.

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LPI

LPI, or Lead Per Inquiry, is a key metric that measures how many leads are generated from each inquiry in a marketing campaign.

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Vertical Market

A vertical market is a niche where businesses cater to a specific industry or group of customers with specialized needs, not the mass market.

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Salesforce Object Query Language

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Multi-touch Attribution

Multi-touch attribution is a marketing analytics method that credits multiple touchpoints on the customer journey for a conversion.

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Quarterly Business Review

A Quarterly Business Review (QBR) is a recurring meeting to assess performance against goals and align on strategy for the next quarter.

Quarterly Business Review

Sales Demo

A sales demo is a presentation where a sales rep shows a prospect how a product or service works and solves their specific problems.

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Digital Strategy

A digital strategy outlines how your business will use online channels, data, and technology to achieve its goals and connect with customers.

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Complex Sale

A complex sale features a long sales cycle, multiple stakeholders, and a high-value transaction, demanding a strategic, consultative approach.

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Sales Kickoff

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Workflow Automation

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Compounded Annual Growth Rate

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Click-Through Rate

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Fault Tolerance

Fault tolerance is a system's ability to continue operating without interruption when one or more of its components fail.

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Ad-hoc Reporting

Ad-hoc reporting is the creation of one-off reports to answer specific business questions as they arise, providing instant, targeted insights.

Ad-hoc Reporting

Upsell

Upselling is a sales tactic encouraging customers to purchase a higher-end version of a product or related add-ons to boost revenue.

Upsell

Sales Playbook

A sales playbook is a guide that outlines your sales process, best practices, and tools to help reps sell more efficiently and consistently.

Sales Playbook

Account-Based Sales Development

Account-Based Sales Development (ABSD) is a focused strategy where SDRs target key stakeholders within specific, high-value accounts.

Account-Based Sales Development

No Spam

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No Spam

B2B Buyer Intent Data

Learn about B2B buyer intent data, including sources and types of buyer intent data, & key benefits of leveraging buyer intent data.

B2B Buyer Intent Data

Marketing Intelligence

Marketing intelligence is gathering and analyzing data about your market, customers, and competitors to inform strategic marketing decisions.

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Cold Calling

Cold calling is a sales tactic where reps contact potential customers by phone who haven't previously expressed interest in their product or service.

Cold Calling

Inbound Lead Generation

Inbound lead generation is the process of attracting potential customers to your business with valuable content and tailored experiences.

Inbound Lead Generation

Request for Proposal

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Request for Proposal

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage is a service model where data is stored on remote servers and accessed from the internet, rather than on a local drive.

Cloud Storage

Account

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Account

Sales Funnel

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Sales Funnel

BAB Formula

Learn about BAB formula, including implementing BAB in sales strategies, crafting an effective BAB pitch, & comparing BAB with other sales frameworks.

BAB Formula

Lightning Components

Lightning Components is a UI framework for building dynamic web apps for mobile and desktop devices on the Salesforce Lightning Platform.

Lightning Components

Programmatic Display Campaign

Programmatic display campaigns use automation to buy and sell digital ad space in real-time, targeting specific audiences across the web.

Programmatic Display Campaign

GDPR Compliance

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GDPR Compliance

Regression Testing

Regression testing ensures that new code changes don’t negatively impact existing features. It's a key step to maintain software quality after updates.

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Email Engagement

Email engagement measures how your audience interacts with your emails. It includes key actions like opens, clicks, replies, and forwards.

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Brag Book

Learn about brag book, including crafting your outstanding brag book, essential components of a brag book, & brag book vs. resume: unveiling the differences.

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Request for Information

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White Label

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Cloud-based CRM

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Cloud-based CRM

Expansion Revenue

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Git

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Google Analytics

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Buyer

Learn about buyer, including identifying your ideal buyer, understanding buyer's journey, & evaluating buyer decision processes.

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B2B Data Platform

Learn about B2B data platform, including key benefits of B2B data platforms, choosing the right B2B data platform, challenges in implementing B2B data platforms.

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Performance Plan

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Customer Relationship Management Systems

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Sandboxes

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Overcoming Objections

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Account-Based Everything

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Account-Based Everything

Sales Dashboard

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Account Mapping

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