I have had many conversations lately about the value of an impression. A lot of people wonder what the value of an impression is, especially as it relates to digital and social media. Brands want to know what the return on their investment is for each impression they buy or earn.
Let’s first demystify impressions, because we often talk about them out of context. Impressions are just a unit of measurement for the display of a piece of content – whether it be on TV, online, OOH display, etc. Often times we talk about impressions as though they are tangible things, but an impression is a metric, just like a click through or a conversion. They are not digital assets.
I explain this to give some context to my POV on the value of impressions. Because impressions are just a unit of measurement, we should evaluate it in the same way we look at other metrics available to us as marketers. I will focus on digital, because…well…that’s where I usually measure them.