Product metrics and goals
RPM and eCPM
Also called Revenue per mille, Revenue per thousand, eCPM, CPM
Ad revenue for every thousand page views (RPM) or every thousand ad impressions (eCPM), the basic measures of how well attention earns.
How it's worked out
RPM = ad revenue ÷ page views × 1,000. eCPM = ad revenue ÷ ad impressions × 1,000
RPM tells a publisher what each page earns; eCPM tells them what each ad slot earns. The gap between them is how many ads are on a page.
Mille is Latin for thousand, which is where the M comes from.
In practice
$24,000 of ad revenue from 4 million page views is an RPM of $6.
Common mistake
Raising RPM by adding ads until readers leave. Watch time spent and returning visitors alongside it.