Definition

CPM is the average cost for 1,000 impressions. CPM measures the total amount spent on an advertising campaign, divided by the number of impressions and multiplied by 1,000. 

(Example: if you spent INR 5,000 and got INR 50,000 impressions, your CPM was INR 100.) 


Benchmarks

Typically, the CPM for prospect campaigns in India is between INR 100 to INR 300. 

For Retargeting & Dynamic Campaigns, your CPM can be high as it only targets the audience who have interacted with your brand or have shown a good amount of interest in your brand. Since the size of such audience type is limited and narrow, CPM spikes up for such campaigns. 


How can I improve my CPM?


Lowering your CPM can help you lower your cost per click, cost per lead, cost per purchase. In another word, you get more on less ad spends.
Following are some of the ways you can improve your CPM: 

  • Audience - The ideal recommended audience should be 100k+. The audience should not be too narrow nor broad. Moreover, you have to make sure that you are using the right targeting.

    (Case: We tried running "Persona Women Economy Apparel Brands" for a brand with an AOV of 8000-10000. Guess the result? We saw a very high rise in CPM for this campaign. Since an amount of 8000-10000 is not considered economical by Indians, this was not the right targeting & hence, the rise in CPM).

  • Creative Quality - The feedback received by the ads also has an impact on CPM. Improving creative quality and updating ad texts regularly can help in decreasing CPM. For this, you can regularly monitor your Ad Relevance Diagnostics & check the Quality, Engagement, & Conversion ranking of your ads. (You can read more about it here).

  • As far as possible, try to keep the placements as 'automatic'. This will give your ads a bigger stage and greater flexibility. This will help you a lot in decreasing your CPM. 
  • Creative type - The creative format of your ad determines where it can be placed and how it will be received
    Example Canvas ads can only be delivered on mobile. And hence it will deliver a higher CPM because of a narrow placement. 
  • Single Videos or Slideshow can work great for you. As we receive a high CTR in our video ads, it can help us in bringing the CPM down. The more impression your ads get, the lesser the CPM. 
  • Broader Audience Targeting/Open Targeting: As also mentioned in the first point, we've to make sure that we have a good audience base. Sometimes when the CPM is extremely high, we try this hack. Recommended Personas/Lookalikes:
    > Persona Demographics
    > Persona Clothing
    > Persona Shoppers
    > Persona Engaged Shoppers
    > Persona Luxury, etc.
    > Lookalike of higher percentage (4-5%) with a bigger time interval (180 Days). 
  • Market demand - The market demand for your target audience at the time your campaign is reserved. 
  • Market supply - How available and responsive your target audience is on Facebook and Instagram.