Measurement

Impression

media impression · opportunity to see

Definition

Impression is an opportunity to see a piece of content — a pageview, a feed slot, a broadcast-audience estimate. In earned reports it is often the outlet’s monthly unique visitors applied to every story, which is how a 200-word brief becomes “12 million impressions.”

AMEC treats this as an output, and a soft one. It is not who read the piece, believed it, or acted.

How it works

If you report impressions, say the source (Comscore, Similarweb, publisher kit, GA) and whether you used unique visitors or raw pageviews. Prefer unique visitors for the issue, not the whole domain, when you can get it. Never multiply by three “for pass-along.”

Worked example

A trade with 80,000 monthly uniques runs your study. Impression line: 80,000 (publisher kit, uniques, June). A vendor instead uses the parent publisher’s 18 million. The board sees a 225× lie.

How it differs

Reach tries to count unique people. Referral traffic counts visits you can see. AVE prices the space. Impressions are the loosest output.

Common errors

Using unique visitors of cnn.com for a two-line blog recap. Adding paid and earned impressions. Calling impressions ROI.

Sources