Impression is the number of times media/advertisements such as article content and listing ads are displayed. However, there are terms such as page view (PV) and reach that are easily mixed with impressions, so I think there are few people who correctly understand their meanings.
Therefore, in this article, we will explain the meaning of impressions, the differences between other web terms, and the media in which you should be aware of impressions. We will also explain how to increase impressions, so please refer to it to attract users from the web.
What is an impression?
First, let’s start with an overview of impressions. As mentioned above, impressions refer to the number of times a media or advertisement is displayed, and are sometimes abbreviated as imp.
In addition, impression is an expression used not only in media and advertising, but also in the use of SNS. Using Twitter as an example, if your tweet is seen by users 10,000 times, this is 10,000 impressions.
Note that whether or not a tweet is clicked or viewed by how many users has nothing to do with the total number of impressions. In other words, if your page is viewed 10,000 times by just one user, it will be counted as 10,000 impressions.
Why impressions matter
Here are some reasons why impressions are important:
Gateway to attract users
In the first place, the fact that no impressions occur means that the advertisement itself is not being displayed, which means that the website is not known to users. If people can’t find you, your target audience won’t come to your website. And if there are no visitors to your website, you won’t be able to sell your products or services.
Impressions are the gateway to attracting users to your website. In other words, how well you can control these impressions holds the key to whether or not you can attract users to your website.
For this reason, impressions are said to be a very important phase.
Value that is the basis of analysis
Impression numbers are the basis for analysis to obtain “CV (conversion)” on a website.
When implementing measures to acquire CV, the important indicators are “click-through rate (CTR)” and “CV rate (CVR)”. The formula to calculate this click rate is “Number of clicks ÷ Number of impressions”.
Furthermore, the formula to calculate the CV rate is “Number of CVs ÷ Number of sessions (number of site visits) x 100”. You can see that no matter which number you come up with, you can’t arrive at it without impressions.
In this way, the number of impressions is an important value that is the basis of analysis in measures to acquire CV.
There are also services where advertising costs are determined by the number of impressions.
Advertising costs are the key to deciding whether or not to continue posting ads, and some services charge advertising costs based on the number of impressions.
Basically, it is a billing format in which a fee is charged every 1000 times an ad is displayed, and this billing format is called “CPM unit price.” CPM stands for “Cost Per Mille” and is also called cost per impression.
Advertisers need to understand the cost of these campaigns and how many impressions they generated and need to keep costs down as much as possible in order to reduce costs as much as possible.
Important for understanding ad views across multiple channels
By looking at the number of impressions, you can easily see which of several
channels
are reaching your users the most. Then, by conducting A/B tests on channels with a high number of ad views, you can find ad patterns that are expected to yield even higher results.
Taking measures to constantly improve impressions like this will lead to improved click-through rates and CV rates.
Difference between impression and similar terms
Earlier, I explained the meaning of impressions. From here, we will explain the difference between impressions and web terms that can be easily confused.
Page view (PV)
Page view (PV) is an indicator that shows how many times a particular article or advertisement has been viewed.
For example, if your article content has 10,000 impressions in search results and 1,000 people actually reach the article content, this is 1,000 page views. In other words, it’s important to understand that impressions and page views are not necessarily proportional.
Click-through rate (CTR)
Click-through rate (CTR) is a term that refers to the number of clicks per impression.
For example, if you have 10,000 impressions and 3,000 of them are clicked, your click-through rate is 30%. As you can see from the above, impressions are just what the user sees, but click-through rate is the number that the user actually reaches for the media or advertisement.
Therefore, be sure to keep the click-through rate in mind when advertising.
Close rate (CVR)
Conversion rate (CVR) is the probability that the number of inquiries and purchases will result in a contract. For example, let’s say there is a product called A that you want the user to purchase.
First, if 10,000 users click A’s product page 1,000 times, the “CTR” at this point is 10%. Next, let’s say that out of the 1,000 users who clicked, 100 users purchased product A. In this case, the CVR is 10%.
In other words, CVR is a number derived from how many users click on a specific page or product, and how many products are sold.
reach
Reach is the number of users who are exposed to your media or ads. Impressions, on the other hand, are simply the number of impressions, not the number of users. For example, if a user sees your ad twice in the search results and clicks on your ad once, that means 1 reach, 2 impressions, and 1 pageview.
engagement
Engagement
refers to the total number of actions users actually take on media or advertisements. Actions include actions such as clicking or saving an image. For example, on Twitter, this includes reactions to posts, likes, retweets, quote retweets, etc.
If 10 users each liked, retweeted, or followed your post 3 times, the total number of engagements would be 30. In addition, the percentage of actions taken on a single tweet is called the “engagement rate.” Please note that the calculation method for engagement rate differs depending on each SNS.
For example, on Twitter, it is calculated by “total number of engagements ÷ total number of impressions x 100”. Also, the term engagement rate is not limited to Twitter, but is commonly used for all SNS, media, and advertising.
In other words, engagement is an indicator that users have taken some action, so constantly improving engagement rates is the key to success.
How impressions are aggregated
So far, we have provided an overview of impressions. There is nothing wrong with the idea that impressions = number of views, but the way impressions are actually counted differs slightly depending on each medium.
For example, in the case of listing ads or organic search results, an impression is counted if even a portion of the ad is displayed. However, on Facebook and other sites, an impression is counted only when the entire ad is displayed. Therefore, be sure to understand how each medium is counted so that you can properly measure impressions.
Media that should be conscious of impressions
Up to this point, we have explained the outline of impression and the difference between it and other words. From here, I will explain three media that you should be aware of in terms of impressions.
internet advertising
First is internet advertising. Internet advertising is a general term for search-linked ads such as listing ads and content-linked ads such as display ads.
For example, in the case of listing ads, the trick to increasing impressions is to increase the quality and budget of the ads and get a higher ranking in search results. Next, when it comes to display advertising, it is important to use the optimal method such as video ads, banners, and image ads to increase the ad quality score mentioned above.
SNS advertising
Next, impressions are also important in SNS advertising. First of all, in order for your ad to be clicked, your ad needs to be seen by as many people as possible. Impressions are important for this purpose.
In order to increase impressions with SNS advertising, it is necessary to increase the advertising budget and select targets appropriately. For example, if you sell products for removing stains for women, but you mistakenly target men in their 20s, you will obviously not be able to get any impressions.
natural search results
Finally, impressions are also important in organic search results. Natural search results refer to the content that appears below listings and Google Maps on
search engines
such as Google and Yahoo.
In other words, in order to increase impressions in organic search results, you need to focus on
SEO
. Our system improves search rankings by providing deeper content than our competitors and solving user problems.
It takes time to rank high in search results, but consider SEO measures to increase impressions.
How to increase impressions
Here we will explain three specific ways to increase impressions.
increase advertising budget
First, increase your current advertising budget. Although this is not the case for all ads, many ad accounts often have a budget set for each impression.
For example, if your cost per impression is 20 yen and your monthly advertising budget is 200,000 yen, you will get 10,000 impressions per month. Also, assuming the cost per impression remains the same going forward, increasing your advertising budget will result in more impressions. Therefore, if you can afford it, consider increasing your advertising budget first.
Review keywords
Next, review your keyword selection. For example, in the case of listing ads, if you advertise the same keywords as your competitors, the system is such that the one with a higher advertising budget can get a higher ranking spot. In other words, if you cannot secure more budget than your competitors, you need to advertise with keywords that differentiate you from your competitors.
It depends on the market, but there are many cases where you can get conversions (CV) even for keywords that competitors with large budgets are not advertising, so prioritize advertising for those keywords while your budget is low.
Adjust bids
And it’s important to adjust your bids for each keyword.
Many advertising accounts have an overall monthly budget set, but very few set a budget for each individual keyword. However, keywords with a lot of competition tend to have higher advertising budgets, with some keywords costing more than 1,000 yen per click.
If your advertising budget is set at 100,000 yen per month, if you publish ads using those keywords, you will only get 100 clicks. The key here is to adjust your bids for each keyword. By setting a maximum cost per click, no more ads will be posted even if you place a keyword with strong competition, so you can earn impressions without putting pressure on your budget.
For example, if you set the monthly budget for keywords with strong competition to 50,000 yen and set the overall budget for other keywords to 50,000 yen, you will be able to obtain stable impressions regardless of the strength of keyword competition. Sho.
Improve the quality of advertisements and LPs
Measures to improve the quality of advertisements and LPs are necessary to raise the advertisement rank. The higher your ad rank, the more likely your ad will be displayed higher, which will lead to an increase in impressions.
advertising quality
Relevance is one of the criteria that determines the quality of advertisements. One of the criteria for increasing ad rank is whether the set keyword and ad content are closely related.
Another benefit of increasing the quality of your ads is that you’re more likely to outrank your competitors even if you bid lower. This allows you to increase impressions and click-through rates while keeping costs down.
LP quality
Regarding the quality of LPs, the basic principle is “relevance.” Whether the set keywords and ad content are closely related to the LP content will lead to a higher ad rank. Based on this, we will take measures such as improving the first view to increase usability, improving the UI (user interface), and making the website lighter.
Change targeting
One of the reasons why impressions are not increasing is that the target is different or the target is not set in the first place.
If you make a mistake in
your targeting
at the first stage, no matter how many ads you send to your target, it will be off target and your target will not be interested. Similarly, if you don’t have a clear target, if you don’t know who the ad is aimed at, it won’t hit anyone.
In such cases, you can expect an increase in impressions by either changing the target or firmly determining the target.
Things to keep in mind when increasing impressions
When increasing impressions, keep the following points in mind:
Be aware that the cost per click may increase
You can increase your bid to increase impressions, but this may also increase your cost per click.
Basically, if your CPC is higher than your competition, you will be displayed higher than the competition, so you need to understand that this will happen systematically and try to increase impressions.
Determine whether the impression is appropriate
Impressions aren’t just about increasing impressions. You need to determine whether the impression is for your target user or an impression that has little relevance to your target audience.
If there are only impressions with little relevance, especially if the billing format is CPM unit price, only costs will be incurred, and even if you can attract them to LP, you cannot expect CV. Unable to recover advertising costs, they will be forced to withdraw. From the perspective of increasing your CV, it is important to provide quality impressions rather than quantity.
If necessary, narrow down the distribution time and distribution target area.
As explained above, it is not just a matter of increasing impressions, but it is also necessary to narrow down the distribution time and target area according to the products and services your company provides.
For example, if the product your company offers is aimed at office workers, the chances of it being viewed will be low even if the ad is distributed during the day. Also, if you are providing services in a limited area, attracting users who live outside the area to your LP will not lead to CV.
From this perspective, it is necessary to narrow down the distribution time and target area according to the products and services your company provides.
summary
In this article, we explained the overview of impressions, the difference between them and other terms, and how to count impressions.
Impressions are the number of times an ad is viewed and are an important indicator of whether your ad or media is being shown to a large number of users. Also, since impressions are an indicator that leads to click-through rates and closing rates, you must first obtain a stable number of impressions.
To that end, why not start preparing to increase impressions by referring to the contents of this article?