CPM = spend ÷ impressions × 1,000
$420 ÷ 30,000 × 1,000 = $14
Why does anyone pay by the thousand?
Because some ads are there to be seen before they are clicked. A shop opening, a new menu, a seasonal offer: the job is to put the news in front of the right people a few times, and the click comes later, often as a walk-in or a search for the business name. Meta's auction sells attention in this unit, and Google sells YouTube and Display inventory the same way, so CPM is how you compare the cost of attention across them.
What a thousand views buys depends on whose eyes they are. Meta's Business Help Centre defines CPM as the average cost of 1,000 impressions and offers it as a way to compare how cost-efficient campaigns are. The objective you pick tells Meta whom to find. Pick awareness and Meta looks for people likely to remember the ad, cheaply. Pick traffic or sales and it looks for people likely to act, who cost more to reach.
What did a Launceston bakery's two campaigns cost per thousand? (example figures)
A bakery in Launceston is opening a second shop and runs two Meta campaigns for two weeks, each to people within 8 km of the new shop, with the same photo of the counter and the same words.
| Objective | Spend | Impressions | CPM | Link clicks | Cost per click | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Campaign A | Awareness | $420 | 70,000 | $6 | 210 | $2.00 |
| Campaign B | Traffic | $420 | 30,000 | $14 | 540 | $0.78 |
Campaign A put the opening in front of more than twice as many views for the money, which is what the owner asked it to do. Campaign B paid more than double per thousand and got 540 people onto the page with the opening-week offer. Neither is wrong. The owner wanted locals to know the shop exists before opening day and then wanted them through the door, so A ran first and B ran in the opening week. Judging A on its clicks, or B on its CPM, would have been the mistake.
What makes CPM go up?
Competition for the same people. More advertisers chasing your audience, as happens in the weeks before Christmas, lifts the price of every thousand. A small audience tends to cost more per view than a broad one, because there are fewer people to choose from. Weak creative costs more too: Meta's auction weighs how people are likely to respond to the ad, so an ad people scroll past pays more to be shown.
Some of that you control. A fresh image, a wider radius or a longer run can bring the price back down. The season you cannot.
Where do you read CPM?
In Meta Ads Manager it is the column CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions), and it sits beside Reach and Frequency in the Performance view. In Google Ads, add Avg. CPM from the Columns menu for Display and YouTube campaigns. On the Display Network, Google can bill on viewable CPM, which counts only impressions it judges were on screen long enough to be seen.
Does CoraVision track CPM?
CoraVision tracks CPM as a sum of two numbers it reads from Meta and Google Ads every night: spend and impressions, for each campaign and ad set. The price per thousand can then be followed week by week without anyone exporting a report. Mira, the Meta Ads specialist, teaches the Meta lessons in CoraVersity, and changes to a campaign stay in your hands.
Questions
What is a normal CPM in Australia?
Meta and Google publish no figure for it, and the price changes with the audience, the season and the objective you chose. Track your own CPM by month for the same audience. A jump with nothing changed on your side usually means more advertisers are chasing the same people.
Am I charged per thousand impressions on Meta?
Not always. Meta reports CPM for every campaign, but most objectives charge per impression, and some let you choose to pay per link click. CPM is a way of reading the price, whichever way you are billed.
Why did my CPM fall while my results got worse?
Meta found people cheaper to reach who were less likely to act. That happens when an objective such as awareness is chasing views, or when an audience is widened. Read cost per result before you celebrate a cheaper thousand.