{
  "slug": "paid-cpm",
  "name": "Average cost per thousand impressions",
  "aliases": [
    "CPM",
    "Avg CPM"
  ],
  "definition": "The average cost of a thousand ad impressions, as reported by Google Ads.",
  "category": "Paid search",
  "type": "monetary",
  "unit": "account currency per thousand impressions",
  "direction": "neutral",
  "verification": "review",
  "aggregation": "Defined in the semantic layer as an average of the ad platform's per-row CPM, but not reachable through any tool.",
  "grain": "Would be one number per date range if it were surfaced.",
  "dimensions": [],
  "requiredFilters": [],
  "sources": [
    "google-ads"
  ],
  "reports": [
    "paid-search-performance-report"
  ],
  "skills": [],
  "verbs": [],
  "rungs": [
    "R5"
  ],
  "levers": [
    "L8"
  ],
  "questions": [
    "What is our CPM?"
  ],
  "caveats": [
    "Not available through any tool today.",
    "Requests for CPM should be answered with what is available, cost, cost per click and cost per conversion, rather than with a substitute number."
  ],
  "freshness": "~1 day behind, Ads reporting settles overnight; same-day spend is provisional.",
  "failureModes": [
    "Substituting cost divided by impressions and presenting it as CPM."
  ],
  "notSameAs": [
    {
      "slug": "paid-average-cpc",
      "why": "CPM prices exposure, CPC prices a click. They are not interchangeable and one cannot stand in for the other."
    }
  ],
  "related": [
    "paid-average-cpc",
    "paid-impressions"
  ],
  "workflows": [],
  "lastVerified": "2026-08-04"
}