Metrics: Reach vs. Impressions — Which is more important?

4 min readAug 27, 2024

Reach vs. impressions metrics may seem like the same measurement but as with every metric in the digital space, the devil is in the detail and the subtle difference between them can, in fact, have a major impact on one’s campaign.

Metrics: Reach vs. Impressions — what’s the difference

Both reach and impressions reflect how many times your content was seen on social media.

The subtle difference, however is vital to know.

Reach measures how many users saw your content
Impressions measure how many times your content was viewed

Sounds like a conundrum, right?

How many users saw your content vs. how many times your content was viewed? Seems the same… but it’s not.

What is Reach?

On social media platforms, reach measures how many different people saw your content. So, if you have a metric of 1,000, this means 1,000 different sets of eyeballs viewed your content.

Most platforms also break this down into where the content was seen. For example on Instagram it may have been 300 views on stories, 400 on Reels, 300 on ‘Explore’ (content searching) etc.

What are impressions?

Impression reveal how many times your social media content was delivered (i.e. displayed on a user’s screen).

The significant difference with impressions is that the same content may be served to one user multiple times, especially when you are running paid media campaign.

This happens for various reasons….

The user engaged with the content and is now seeing it again because others are engaging with it
The user navigated to different sections of a social media platform, for example on Instagram said user may browse their feed, then choose to view some reels and then possibly go look at stories. That’s three opportunities to view your content, especially it it’s a reel which was used in a post and then also shared toy our stories for further reach.
Multiple impressions can also occur in paid media campaigns, especially if your target audience is too small. A social media platform will spend your budget no matter what, (with subtle warnings, they are no completely mercenary) so if your audience is small it will re-serve your advert to the same people since one pays per impression for most platforms.

How Reach vs. impressions are defined on different platforms

Having explained all the above, different social media platforms do define reach and impressions slightly differently.

Facebook

On Facebook, ‘Reach’ signifies the extent to which individuals encountered content associated with your Facebook Page — whether directly from your Page or content involving your Page (such as a post where you were tagged).

On the other hand, ‘Impressions’ denote the instances when content linked to your Page appeared on someone’s screen. This could occur via their news feed, through a search query, or when they specifically visited your Page.

For those using Facebook advertising, Impressions can further be categorised into paid and organic views.

Instagram

On Instagram, ‘Accounts Reached’ indicates the count of distinct accounts that have encountered your content displayed on-screen at least once.

Instagram impressions are straightforward — they represent the total number of times your content has been viewed, including repeated views from the same user.

Within the Instagram application, you have the ability to monitor reach and impressions for various timeframes: the last 7 days, 30 days, the previous month, or the last 90 days.

Additionally, you can analyse these metrics based on audience demographics such as gender, location, and age.

TikTok

TikTok is pretty straightforward as it sticks to directly to the explanation we offered at the start of this blog.

Reached audience reports the number of unique users who watched your videos.

Impressions is Total video views. Which effectively means total times the video was served to unique or same users.

Both metrics are helpful.

X (Twitter)

X provides insight into the total impressions of each tweet, indicating the frequency with which it appears on users’ feeds or in search results.

By enabling X’s built-in analytics feature, you gain access to your tweet’s total impressions spanning the last 7 days, 28 days, or within a specified month.

However, X does not offer a calculation for reach

YouTube

YouTube does not provide a metric for reach.

Its impressions metric does, however, reveal the number of times one’s video’s thumbnail was shown in user’s feeds.

You can also track how many clicks, and how much watch time, those impressions led to and, of course, the metric that counts the most, how many total views your content received.

Using reach and impressions metrics in your campaign strategy

Typically, reach and impressions serve as metrics at the top of the funnel.

When prioritising these metrics, the objective is to maximise the visibility of your content rather than immediate conversion actions, such as purchases.

Consequently, both reach and impressions align closely with objectives like enhancing brand awareness and expanding your audience.

If cultivating strong customer connections is your aim, emphasising impressions may be preferable. Multiple viewings of your content indicate a lasting impact, reinforcing your brand presence.

Conversely, reach might hold greater significance if your business model prioritises broad exposure and expanding your follower base over long-term relationships and repeat transactions.

While reach and impressions are consistently important, their significance might be heightened at the onset of your social media journey.

As your content gains traction, you may opt to shift focus towards mid- to bottom-funnel metrics, such as engagement, clicks, or conversions.

At Bigger Than Me we often augment our call-to-action campaigns (mid- to bottom funnel) with top funnel reach campaigns.