RPM (revenue per thousand sessions) is a better metric for evaluating publisher revenue health than CPM, and most publishers track the wrong one.
CPM tells you what advertisers are paying for individual impressions. RPM tells you how much money each user visit actually generates. These can move in opposite directions.
Scenario: you run an experiment adding a new ad unit to your article pages. CPM on the new unit is $4. But adding the unit increases bounce rate on mobile — users leave faster. RPM drops because total impressions per session fall even though the unit-level CPM is fine.
The experiment looks profitable at the CPM level and unprofitable at the RPM level. RPM is the correct measure because it captures the user experience impact.
Measure RPM by device, by content category, and by traffic source. These dimensions often show dramatically different patterns and reveal where optimization work has the most impact.
Lift Lab
@LiftLabRPM
RPM (revenue per thousand sessions) is a better metric for evaluating publisher revenue health than CPM, and m
This post was published in the Telegram channel Lift Lab. Subscribe here: @LiftLabRPM.