There is no way we can comprehend or assess media performance without first understanding the various media metrics available to us. While there is a world of metrics that we can use, this article highlights the most commonly used metrics in digital media.
Each of these are broken down into 3 components,
1. The volume metric, or the unit metric, which tells us the value that we are tracking
2. The efficiency metric, which tells us how much we pay for unit metric. Depending on the publisher, this can also be the 'buy model', which is the way that you pay the publisher for using their media.
3. The effectiveness metric, which tells us how well our ad is working to drive a certain outcome or action.
Read on for the list of media metrics, or download this reference sheet to keep offline:
Impressions
Definition: An impression simply refers to the instance of an ad being shown on screen. It does not guarantee that the ad is actually seen by the audience. An impression is also not unique to each device user, you can serve multiple ad impressions to one person.
Efficiency Metric: Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions or Cost-Per-Mille (CPM)
Formula: Media Cost / Impressions X 1,000
Definition: Given that we normally serve millions of impressions, it is easier to cost impressions by the thousands. So a $5 CPM means that you would pay $5 for every 1,000 impressions that are served.
Effectiveness Metric: NA
Formula: NA
Definition: Impressions do not have an effectiveness metric as it is not a measure of performance. It is simply the action of serving an ad. It does not tell us anything beyond how many times our ads were shown.
Reach
Definition: Reach refers to the unique number of individuals our ads were shown to, also known as unique impressions. In this case, a reach of 1,000 means that we showed our ads to 1,000 different device users.
Efficiency Metric: Cost-Per-Thousand Unique Impressions (Unique CPM or ‘uCPM’)
Formula: Media Cost / Unique Impressions X 1,000
Definition: Here we use the number of unique impressions served as our base for determining how efficient we were in reaching a specific number of people. For example, we might have spent $25 and served 5,000 impressions, but only 1,000 impressions were unique. In this case, the uCPM will be $25 as we spent $25 to reach 1,000 unique audiences.
Effectiveness Metric: Reach Rate
Formula: Unique Impressions / Max Potential Audience Population
Definition: Here we want to determine how effective we were in reaching a certain population. For example, if we want to reach women aged 25-30 who make up a population of 2 million, and we end up reaching 1 million of them, then our reach rate would be 50%. This tells us that our media campaign managed to reach 50% of our desired audience.
Clicks
Definition: Clicks refer to any instance of a user clicking on an ad.
Efficiency Metric: Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
Formula: Media Cost / Clicks
Definition: This is the cost of each click. It tells us how cost efficient we were in driving clicks.
Effectiveness Metric: Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
Formula: Clicks / Impressions
Definition: The CTR reflects the proportion of clicks we received from all the impressions that were served. This tells us how effective our ads were in convincing our target audience to click on our ad.
Landing Page Visits
Definition: A landing page visit refers to the instance where a click on an ad resulted in someone visiting our specified website destination. It is often thought that a click is the same as a landing page visit, but not all clicks result in a landing page visit. This could be due to accidental clicks on ad, the landing page taking too long to load, and if you don't have necessary measures in place, you could be victim to bot-clicks. So, if your media objective is to drive traffic to your website, landing page visits would be the best practice metric to use as opposed to clicks.
Efficiency Metric: Cost-Per-Landing Page Visit
Formula: Media Cost / Landing Page Visit
Definition: This is how much we pay for each landing page visit, telling us how cost efficient we were in driving each landing page visit.
Effectiveness Metric 1: Landing Rate
Formula: Landing Page Visits / Impressions
Definition: Landing rate is essentially the same as CTR but instead of clicks, you measure the portion of impressions that resulted in actual landing page visits. This tells you how well your ad worked in driving someone to your website.
Effectiveness Metric 2: Click-to-Landing Rate
Formula: Landing Page Visits / Clicks
Definition: Click-to-Landing Rate serves a different purpose. It helps us assess the quality of clicks we received by looking at the proportion of clicks that resulted in a landing page visit. Based on this, we can take action on improving our ads, testing our landing page load speeds, and even assessing the legitimacy of the media placement to ensure we are not running ads on websites rife with fraudulent activity.
Video Views
Definition: A video view is defined as a video ad watched to a specified minimum duration. This minimum duration differs from publisher to publisher. It could be as short as 3 seconds or as long as 30 seconds.
Efficiency Metric: Cost-Per-View (CPV)
Formula: Media Cost / Video Views
Definition: This is the cost of each video view. It tells us how cost efficient we were in driving each video view.
Effectiveness Metric: View-Through-Rate (VTR)
Formula: Video Views / Impressions
Definition: VTR refers to the proportion of impressions that resulted in a video view. It tells us how effective our video ads were in getting people to watch it to the specified minimum duration for it to count as a ‘view’.
Completed Video Views
Definition: A completed video view refers to the full video ad being watched to completion regardless of how long the ad might be.
Efficiency Metric: Cost-Per-Completed View (CPCV)
Formula: Media Cost / Completed Video Views
Definition: This is the cost of each instance our video ad plays to completion, and tells us how cost efficient we were in driving each completed video view.
Effectiveness Metric: Video Completion Rate
Formula: Completed Video Views / Video Views
Definition: The Video Completion Rate refers to the proportion of video views that completed video views made up. This tells us how effective our video ad was in sustaining the audience's attention throughout the entire video ad.
Audio Listens
Definition: An audio listen refers to the instance of an audio ad playing to either a minimum duration or completion. More often than not, this is to completion as it is rare to find a 'skip' option for audio ads.
Efficiency Metric: Cost-Per Listen
Formula: Media Cost / Audio Listens
Definition: This is how much you pay every time your audio ad plays. It tells us how cost efficient each audio listen was.
Effectiveness Metric: Listen Rate
Formula: Audio Listen / Impressions
Definition: Listen Rate refers to the proportion of ad impressions that resulted in our ads being heard. This tells us how effective our media is in getting people to listen to our ad.
Engagements
Definition: Engagements refer to almost all kinds of interactions with our ad. Often this refers to clicks on interactive advertisements, and social engagements such as likes, comments and shares.
Efficiency Metric: Cost-Per Engagement (CPE)
Formula: Media Cost / Engagements
Definition: This is the cost we pay for each engagement with our ad. It tells us how cost efficient we are in getting people to engage with our ad.
Effectiveness Metric: Engagement Rate
Formula: Engagements / Impressions
Definition: The engagement rate refers to the proportion of ad impressions that users engaged with. It tells us how effective our media and creative was in enticing our audience to interact with our ads.
Action/Conversion
Definition: Actions and Conversions are custom Direct Response metrics where we have an intended action that we want our audience taking, usually as a secondary step on our website. Some examples of these are Lead Form Completion, Applications, or Acquisition/Purchase. These are all usually classified as 'conversions'.
Efficiency Metric: Cost-Per Action (CPA)
Formula: Media Cost / Action
Definition: This refers to the cost of each conversion, and tells us how cost efficiently we are driving these conversions. You can replace action with your own custom conversion point (e.g. Cost-Per-Lead, Cost-Per-Application etc.)
Effectiveness Metric: Click to Conversion Rate
Formula: Conversions / Clicks
Definition: Given that conversions are often a secondary step following clicks, we want to see how effective our clicks were in driving our desired actions. This is done by assessing the proportion of clicks that resulted in a conversion.
Final Note: The definition of metrics might vary slightly depending on the measurement tool or platform that you use. Remember to verify the exact definitions supplied by your measurement tool in order to read data and assess performance accurately.
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