Plain answer
CPM (cost per mille) is what you pay to have your ad shown 1,000 times, whether or not anyone clicks. It's the standard pricing for awareness campaigns on Meta, LinkedIn, and display networks, where the goal is being seen by the right people rather than winning a single click.
How CPM actually works
An impression is one appearance of your ad on one screen. With CPM pricing you buy those appearances in blocks of a thousand. A $20 CPM means each thousand views of your ad costs $20 — about two cents a view.
Even when you pay per click, the auction underneath often thinks in CPM. Platforms estimate how much money an ad will make per thousand showings and rank ads accordingly. That's why an ad people actually click can cost less to show: it earns its slot.
CPC vs CPM: which should you pay?
| CPC (per click) | CPM (per 1,000 views) | |
|---|---|---|
| You pay for | An action — someone clicks through | Presence — the ad appears on screens |
| Best when | You want visits, leads, or sales you can count | The right audience should see you repeatedly, or the format naturally earns few clicks (brand video) |
| Judge it by | Cost per acquisition | What the impressions eventually cause — searches, visits, conversions |
To compare the two fairly, convert them. A $20 CPM with a 1% click-through rate works out to $2 per click — the arithmetic is (CPM ÷ 1,000) ÷ CTR. Run that conversion before deciding which buying model is "cheaper."
What's a good CPM?
It depends on who you're reaching, not on a chart. Narrow, valuable audiences cost more per thousand than broad ones, and that's usually a fair trade. The honest question isn't "is my CPM low?" — it's "is the audience seeing these thousand impressions the one that buys?" A cheap CPM in front of the wrong people is the most expensive media you can buy.
What this means for your ads
Most small-business budgets should earn their keep in clicks and conversions first; impression buying rewards businesses with the patience and budget to be remembered. If you do buy on CPM, cap how often one person sees the ad and judge the campaign by what those impressions eventually cause — searches, visits, conversions — not by the size of the number.
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