CPM Calculator

Essential Information on Cost per Impression Rates

Cost Per Impression Rates

There is no definite cost per impression average for legal websites, but there are ways to use a CPM calculator to determine how much revenue your website is bringing in compared to other forms of advertising or how much money you’re spending on your advertising campaign.

In this article, you can find information about a CPM calculator, and you can also find information on cost per impression rates on certain networks, as well as making adjustments based upon your calculations.

A Quick Look at your Cost per Impression Average

When using a CPM calculator, a simple equation will usually help you determine a cost per impression average:

Total site revenue / total site page views X 1,000= CPM average

An impression is when a reader views the advertisement, whether that ad is a banner ad, text ad, video, etc. There are two ways the advertisements can occur. An advertisement can be placed on a website or several different pages for a certain amount of time, and the advertisement can be loaded a certain amount of times—both of which can affect the CPM calculator.

Additionally, you may be able to buy a certain amount of ad impressions and the advertisement will be loaded a certain amount of times. Each type of advertisement will affect your cost per impression rates.

Examples of a Cost per Impression Average

The following examples highlight how a CPM calculator can work:

1. A website generates $5,000 in revenue in a month and the page receives 500,000 views in a month. The cost per impression average for the website would be $10.

2. A smaller website generates $1,000 in revenue and has 50,000 views a month. Therefore, the cost per impression average for the website is $20.

Cost per Impression Rates and Cost per Visitor

In addition to calculating a simple cost per impression average, you should try to figure out the cost for every conversion. There is a simple method to figure out this calculation, and the data can add analysis to your CPM calculator.

Let’s say that you’ve received 1818 clicks on the CPM advertisement in the last month, you spent $4,700 on the campaign thus far, and there were a total amount of 198 conversions. With this data, you can calculate the ad spends per visitor, the conversion rate, and the ad spends per conversion. Such information would yield the following information:

Ad Spend Per Visitor: $2.59

Conversion Rate: 10.89%

Ad Spend Per Conversion: $23.78

Once you’ve used the data to figure out the ad spend per visitor and per conversion, you can use the same data to convert back to a cost per impression average. If your data reflects that you should be spending less on cost per impression rates, you should talk with the agency about negotiating prices. If the agency cannot adjust rates to lower the cost per impression average, you should consider checking into other agencies that are willing to offer better prices.

Advertisement Sizes and Cost per Impression Rates

The size of the advertisement is likely to influence the CPM calculator as well. There are certain kinds of common advertising sizes, but others are not standard and may greatly affect the cost per impression average. The types of sizes are explained below:

1. Leaderboards (728x90 pixels): this is the most common type of web advertisement and not likely to increase your cost per impression rates. These types of advertisements stretch across the top or bottom of a page and make up as much as 30% of all internet ads.

2. Medium/Large Rectangles (300x250 and 336x280): this type of ad can greatly reduce the cost per impression average because the advertisement is intended to interrupt the text and the paragraph is positioned around the advertisement. You may notice a reduction in the CPM calculator because readers are more likely to click on the ad if they read around it.

3. Skyscraper (120x600): these types of ads are also common and lay on the left or right side of the screen. These ads can either increase or decrease cost per impression rates.

4. Non-Standard: a non-standard ad may affect your CPM calculator positively because the ads may stand out from other ads.

5. Full Banner (468x60): these advertisements look like small leaderboards and can increase or decrease the cost per impression average depending on their placement.

6. Button (120x90 or 120x60): these ads usually only provide a link to another site and can increase or decrease your cost per impression rates depending on their position.

Can I use a CPM calculator on Facebook?

If you’re considering running an advertisement on Facebook, the website provides specific software to help you determine your cost per impression rates.

If you simply want an estimate for cost per impression average, you can skip the process above and simply type in “test copy” in the blank space. Then, you’ll want to take the following steps to use the CPM calculator:

1. Enter your accurate targeting criteria, and the tool on Facebook will use this information to estimate a bid range for your advertising.

2. This step, called “Pricing,” will give you a suggested bid which helps you estimate the total cost of reaching your intended audience.

When using the CPM calculator on Facebook, know that the amount you are charged can never exceed your daily or lifetime budget.

Conclusion on a CPM Calculator

Every CPM calculator will yield a different cost per impression average. If you notice noticeable differences in cost per impression rates from the software you’re using and the agency’s software, you need to notify the agency immediately. If they accept that their cost per impression average is off, they may offer certain discounts.