= $5.88
The median published eCPM here is $5.88, from 16 sellers' published rates.
See how published rates split out by channel in the buying guides.
eCPM (effective CPM) is a publisher's own view of what a placement earned, expressed the same way a buyer reads a CPM: revenue per thousand impressions. It is the same arithmetic as CPM — the difference is which side of the deal is asking. A buyer asks "what does this reach cost me"; a publisher asks "what did this reach actually earn", which matters most where the revenue came from several rates or an auction rather than one flat CPM.
A placement earns $850 across 170,000 impressions in a month, mixing a few direct-sold banners with programmatic fill. eCPM = ($850 ÷ 170,000) × 1,000 = $5 — a single comparable figure even though no single buyer paid exactly $5 CPM for all of it.
CPM is a price a buyer agrees to pay per thousand impressions. eCPM is what a publisher actually realised per thousand impressions after the fact — useful anywhere revenue comes from a mix of rates, an auction, or a revenue share, where no single CPM describes the whole placement.
Total revenue does not say whether a placement is doing well — a bigger placement earns more by default. eCPM normalises for size, so a publisher can compare a homepage banner against a sidebar slot even though one gets ten times the impressions.
It is a reasonable starting point — it says what the placement has actually earned recently — but a rate card CPM is a price offered forward, and a seller usually adds room above eCPM for the deals that come in below the median.