Advertising Guides

CPM, CPC and CTR explained

CPM (cost per mille) is the price of 1,000 impressions: spend divided by impressions, times 1,000. It measures the cost of reach. CPC is spend divided by clicks and measures the cost of traffic. CTR is clicks divided by impressions and shows how often people who saw the ad actually clicked.

The three connect through one identity: CPC = CPM / (CTR x 10). With a CPM of 8 and a CTR of 1%, CPC is 0.80. Improving creative to lift CTR lowers your CPC without touching your bid, while better targeting often raises CPM but can pay back through conversions.

Use CPM when your goal is awareness, CPC when you want visits and CPA or ROAS when you want sales. Whatever the goal, compare against your own history and margins. Try the numbers in our CPM calculator.

How to set up a UTM naming convention

A UTM convention is a written agreement on how every campaign link is tagged. Without one, reports fill up with near-duplicates such as fb, Facebook and facebook-ads.

Start with a fixed list of allowed sources and mediums. Name campaigns with a pattern like year_month_goal_audience, for example 2026_10_leadgen_lookalike. Keep everything lowercase, use underscores, and put creative variations in utm_content. Record each link in a shared sheet, review it monthly, and build links with the UTM builder so they stay consistent.