What is CPM (cost per mille)?
CPM, or cost per mille, is the cost a brand pays per 1,000 impressions or views of a piece of content, used to compare the efficiency of creator and ad placements.
In influencer marketing, CPM helps brands benchmark what a sponsored post costs relative to the reach it delivers.
A lower CPM means more reach per dollar, though engagement and conversion matter just as much as raw impressions.
CPM is useful for comparing placements and misleading when used to price a partnership on its own. It treats every impression as identical, when an impression from a creator whose audience already trusts them is not worth the same as one from a display ad. Use CPM to sanity-check whether a quote is wildly out of line, then judge the partnership on engagement and conversion rather than on cost per thousand.
Related terms
- Engagement rate
- Engagement rate is the percentage of a creator’s audience that interacts with their content, calculated as total engagements (likes, comments, shares, saves) divided by followers or reach, times 100.
- Influencer marketing
- Influencer marketing is a form of marketing where brands pay social media influencers to promote products to their followers, using the influencer’s trust and reach to drive awareness and sales.
More in Metrics
CPM (cost per mille) sits in the metrics part of the glossary. These terms come up in the same conversations and are worth reading alongside it.