= $5.88
The median published CPM here is $5.88, from 16 sellers' published rates.
See how published rates split out by channel in the buying guides.
CPM (cost per thousand impressions) is what a buyer pays for every 1,000 times an ad is served, regardless of whether anyone clicks it. It is the standard unit for programmatic display, video and most banner buys, and the figure most rate cards quote first because it prices reach rather than a response. A buyer uses it to compare the cost of visibility across sellers before weighing what any of them convert into.
A seller quotes $6 CPM and the campaign has a $3,000 budget. Impressions = ($3,000 ÷ $6) × 1,000 = 500,000 impressions. The same $3,000 at a $12 CPM buys half that reach — CPM is the number that makes those two sellers comparable.
One thousand ad impressions — the ad being served, not seen or clicked. It says nothing about viewability or whether the placement worked; it only prices reach.
Audience size, targeting precision and format all move it. A small newsletter with a highly specific readership can charge a higher CPM than a huge general site, because the reach it sells is harder to replace.
Not on its own. A cheap CPM on the wrong audience produces impressions nobody acts on. CPM prices exposure; what a buyer ultimately cares about is what that exposure costs per click or per outcome, which is what the CPC and CPA calculators are for.