<b>CPM: the price tag on every bid</b>

<b>CPM: the price tag on every bid</b>

When a bidder says "$2.50," they mean $2.50 CPM — the price for showing the ad 1,000 times. CPM stands for "cost per mille," and mille is Latin for thousand.

Why it matters: every bid you'll ever see is a CPM. Reading them right keeps you from panicking that "$2.50" sounds tiny — it's per thousand views, not per view.

Tiny example: a $2.50 CPM on 40,000 daily ad views = $100 a day from that slot, if it wins every time.

One thing to try: take your best CPM, multiply by your daily ad views, divide by 1,000. That's your rough ceiling.

<b>In plain English:</b> CPM is the price for 1,000 ad views, and every bid is quoted that way.