How to Calculate CPM Easily With Our CPM Calculator
In my years of crafting digital campaigns, CPM was always the metric I dreaded. Not only because that usually meant that I was going to be evaluated by a spreadsheet -- seriously, spreadsheets are a terrible way to evaluate a campaign -- but also because CPM was oddly difficult to calculate.
For you newbies, CPM stands for "cost per thousand". Think about it like a unit price on food at the grocery store. If granny smith apples cost $2/pound but golden delicious cost $4/pound, you may decide to opt for granny smith. Similarly, if someone is buying ad impressions, knowing that one publisher has a CPM of $40 and another has a CPM of $25, you may opt for the cheaper. (Again, this metric kills me...because often you aren't comparing the same thing. It would be like comparing granny smith apples with the price of a cake. They don't compare! Anyway, rant over.)
CPM = Cost / Number of impressions (in thousands)
Let's say that you have 465,000 impressions that you're selling for $19,530. What is the CPM? If you said $42, you got it right. Another one: If I have $16,400 to spend and the CPM is $64, how many ad impressions can I buy? It is an oddly annoying thing to calculate.
Well, Marketing Dive came up with something to make marketing and agency lives easier. Our CPM Calculator does the work for you and unlike pad and pen, it will always be right. Hope you like it, and if you have any more ideas for simple tools that help you be better at your job, let us know!
