Impression
An impression is counted each time your content, an ad, search result, social media post, or web page, is displayed on a user's screen, regardless of whether they interact with it.
Impressions measure visibility and reach. Every time your Google ad appears in search results, that's an impression. Every time your social media post shows up in someone's feed, that's an impression.
High impression counts indicate good visibility and reach; low impressions might signal targeting issues, budget constraints, or low search volume. Impressions differ from reach. Impressions count total displays (one person seeing your ad 5 times = 5 impressions), while reach counts unique people (5 impressions to 1 person = 1 reach).
In practice
- A startup's Google Ads campaign generated 500,000 impressions but only 1,500 clicks (0.3% CTR), their ad copy wasn't compelling enough, not their targeting
- A blog post had 50,000 impressions in Google Search Console but ranked at position 15, improving it to position 5 increased clicks from 200 to 5,000 per month
- A social media campaign reached 2 million impressions across platforms, establishing brand awareness that later drove a 40% increase in branded search queries
- A display ad campaign's impression data showed ads were serving 90% to ages 55+ despite targeting 25-40, fixing the targeting immediately improved CTR and conversions
Not sure how this applies to you?
A senior engineer walks your site, your search presence and the way enquiries reach you, then writes down the three things worth fixing first. You keep the document either way.