Impressions are the number of times your content or ad is displayed, with every display counted separately. If the same person sees your ad three times, that’s one person reached and three impressions. It’s the pair of metrics most often confused in reports: reach counts unique people, while impressions count every time someone comes across the content.
Impressions vs reach: why do you need both numbers?
Because they only make sense together. Divide impressions by reach and you get ad frequency: how many times the average person has seen the content. In Meta Ads campaigns you pay for impressions (the CPM rate is the cost of a thousand impressions), so if impressions keep rising while reach stays flat, the system is showing your ad to the same people over and over. That’s the moment to refresh the creative or widen the audience.
A common mistake when reading reports
‘The post reached 10,000 people’ often turns out to mean 10,000 impressions from, say, 6,000 actual people. Before you compare results month on month or one account with another, make sure you’re comparing the same metrics. In our client reports we always keep these numbers separate, because they can point to opposite conclusions.
Related terms: organic reach, CPM, ad frequency.
