What is Cost per impression (CPI)? Formula and Calculator of Cost per impression in 2024?

Cost per impression

Cost per impression, often abbreviated to PPI is a term used in Internet marketing. Refers to all types of paid banner advertising and visual advertising entertainment where advertisers pay each time an ad is viewed.

In general, publisher earnings are defined in terms of CPM, i.e. the cost of 1000 exposures.

What is Cost per impression (CPI)? 

Cost-per-impression, along with pay-per-click (PPC) and cost-per-order, is used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and profitability of online advertising. Cost-per-impression is the closest online advertising strategy to those offered in other media such as television, radio, or print media, which sell advertising based on rated viewers, listeners, or readers. PPI provides a comparable measure for comparing Internet advertising to other media.

Page impression and view

An impression is when a user sees an ad while viewing a web page. In these cases, a single page view would produce one impression for each ad viewed. To count served impressions as accurately as possible and to prevent fraud, an ad server may exclude certain non-qualifying activities such as page updates or other user actions from being counted as impressions. When advertising rates are described as CPM or CPI, you know the amount paid for every thousand impressions.

Construction

The cost per impression comes from your advertising costs and the number of impressions.

Cost per impression ($) = Advertising cost ($) / Number of impressions (#)

Cost per impression is often expressed as " cost per thousand impressions " (CPM) to make numbers easier to manage.

What is Cost per impression (CPI)? 

Advertising model

There are different advertising models. Each advertising model captures a phase of the sales cycle:

Impression (view) > Click > Lead (signup) > Purchase (action):

• Printing: CPM model (cost per thousand impressions);
• Clicks: CPC model ( cost per click );
• Leads: CPL model (cost per lead, for example, signing up for a website or newsletter );
• Action: CPA model (cost per action, such as a purchase);
• Engagement: CPE model (cost per engagement, i.e. interaction with the ad).