RPM is a metric that helps you understand your ad revenue relative to your traffic.
RPM stands for revenue per mile (revenue per 1000). It is a measurement tool that shows you earnings accrued for every 1000 units (in this case units are traffic - sessions or pageviews). It’s important to note that RPM is NOT the rate at which you are earning, but rather a way to understand revenue performance when weighed against traffic specifics.
RPM is calculated by dividing ad revenue for a specific period of time, by traffic for that same period of time, and then multiplying by 1000.
Revenue / Traffic * 1000 = RPM
Session RPM is the right place to focus (at least initially)
Session RPM accounts for not just a single page of reader activity, but all the pages a reader visits during a single session on your site. If you’ve created an experience that keeps readers around for more than a single pageview, that’s valuable.
RPM in context
RPM is just one way to understand your performance. Reflected in RPM are many site-specific details, which is why comparing RPM can be a pretty fruitless effort. Because revenue and traffic are both parts of the RPM calculation, this measurement offers many insights into:
TRAFFIC
- Countries of origin (where your readers are browsing from)
- Content (are readers spending their time on well-optimized posts?)
- Time on site (indicates reader engagement)
- Browsers
- Devices
- Traffic sources (Email, Google, Pinterest, etc)
REVENUE (CPM * Impressions / 1000)
- Holidays
- Seasonal advertiser spend
- Viewability (measures if ads were seen)
- Brand Safe content
- Impressions per session or page
… and more!
RPM calculations happen at the END, not at the beginning.
In order to calculate RPM, you have to have finalized revenue and traffic numbers. In other words, the traffic and advertiser spend has already happened.
In order to increase RPM as you go forward, you have to dig into traffic and revenue details. Examine CPM and Impressions (the two pieces of your actual ad revenue), as well as details about your traffic.