Metrics & KPIs

CPM

Cost Per Mille — what you pay for a thousand ad impressions. The primary lever of how expensive it is to reach people on a platform.

CPM measures how much a platform is charging you to be seen by a thousand people. It's set by a combination of auction competition (how many advertisers want your audience right now) and relevance (how engaged your ad is). Lower CPM = cheaper reach = generally cheaper sales, all else equal.

Benchmarks in 2026: Meta CPMs run $10-$30 depending on country and audience; TikTok is $5-$15 (cheaper but often lower-intent traffic); Google Display is $2-$8. US, UK, AU, and CA have the highest CPMs globally.

CPM spikes are the earliest sign of creative fatigue. If your CPM climbs 20% in a week with no account changes, your creative has stopped earning cheap impressions from the algorithm — which is the algorithm's way of telling you to refresh.

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Related terms in Metrics & KPIs
AOV
Average Order Value — the average dollar amount a customer spends per transaction. Total revenue divided by number of orders.
AOV Lift
The increase in Average Order Value produced by a specific tactic — bundles, upsells, order bumps, quantity discounts. Every dollar of AOV lift compounds against ad spend.
ATC
Add to Cart — the tracked event when a visitor adds an item to their cart. ATC-to-purchase ratio is a powerful diagnostic of checkout friction.
Attach Rate
The percentage of orders that include a secondary item — typically an upsell, bundle, or order bump. Every 10% of attach rate is ~4-6% of AOV lift.
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