what is an impression in digital marketing

In digital marketing, an impression refers to the number of times an advertisement or any other form of digital media is displayed on a users screen. Impressions are not action-based and are merely defined by a user potentially seeing the advertisement. They are used to quantify the number of digital views or engagements of a piece of content, usually an advertisement, digital post, or web page. Impressions are important because they provide a simple representation of how many people are seeing ads within a particular channel, and calculating the number of impressions a campaign generates is one of the simplest ways to ascertain how far an advertising channel really reaches. Impressions are generally sold in terms of cost-per-thousand (CPM) impressions, and are ideal for businesses intent on spreading brand awareness. Although impressions are not a measure of whether an advertisement has been clicked on, they are a great complementary metric to help marketers better understand the effectiveness of their campaigns.