No online advertising world, RPM is a very famous metric that pops up everywhere. You might have seen it in reports, dashboards, meetings… it’s the celebrity of ad monetization. In this blog, we go back to the basics: the meaning of RPM, why it matters and how you can use it to get more revenue from your website.
O que é RPM?
RPM stands for “revenue per mille.” In other words, it’s the money a publisher earns from ads for every 1,000 page views on their website.
For publishers, RPM is definitely one of the most important metrics to track. It tells you how much money your traffic really makes. Let’s dive into why.
Why is RPM important for publishers?
RPM shows the actual revenue from your traffic. It brings all your ad revenue together into one clear number.
Surely if you’ve heard about RPM, you’ve probably heard about CPM too. CPM (cost per mille) is what advertisers pay for 1,000 ad impressions on your website. On the other hand, RPM is what you take home for every 1,000 monetizable page views with ads on you website.
You could say that CPM looks at the advertiser’s side, while RPM looks at yours. That’s one of the key differences between CPM and RPM.
You can use RPM to:
- Compare the performance of different pages or traffic sources.
- Spot drops in revenue early, even when your traffic is static.
- Measure the impact of changes in your ad layout, partners or setup.
How to calculate RPM
Good news is the formula is pretty simple, we promise:
RPM= (Total revenue / Total page views) * 1,000
This is the same formula Google AdSense uses to calculate RPM, so you’re good.
Theory is great, but now let’s see it with an example. Imagine your website earned $500 last month. During that month, it received 125,000 page views.
$500 ÷ 125,000 views = 0.004
0.004 x 1,000 = $4 RPM
According to the formula you earn $4 for every 1,000 page views in your site. So far so good?
If you want to estimate what your website could earn, you can try our calculadora de receita de anúncios.
But here’s the thing: you can measure RPM in other ways besides page views. It will depend on what you want to analyze. You can also calculate it per session or per ad impression.
Types of RPM in advertising
In advertising we use three types of RPM. And luckily for you, they all use the same formula. The only thing that changes is what you divide your revenue by. Come on, we’ll show you with our previous example website.
Page RPM
Page RPM measures how much you earn per 1,000 page views. It is the one that gives you a big picture view of how your whole website performs. It’s the one we just calculated, and the most used by publishers.
Session RPM
Now imagine that a reader lands on your site to read an article. They like it, they click on another one, and then another. That whole visit counts as only one session.
Session RPM measures how much you earn per 1,000 of those whole visits. It tells you how valuable a full visit is before the user leaves.
Imagine our website had 100,000 sessions last month:
$500 ÷ 100,000 = 0.005
0.005 × 1,000 = $5 session RPM
Impression RPM
When an ad loads on a page, that counts as one impression. So if your website has three ad slots filled with three ads, one page view can bring you three impressions.
Impression RPM measures revenue per 1,000 ad impressions. It shows how each ad unit performs, so you can compare them and find your top performers.
For instance, if your website had 500,000 ad impressions last month:
$500 ÷ 500,000 = 0.001
0.001 × 1,000 = $1 RPM
You might think it’s a low number, but don’t you panic! Your revenue is simply spread over more impressions, because in this case each page shows several ads.
What is a good RPM?
If you expected an exact number, sorry to disappoint, but it depends. Every website is different, and so is every RPM.
What’s considered “good” is based on a multiple factors:
- Your audience location. Advertisers bid differently depending on where your users are. They won’t pay the same for a spanish website and an american website.
- The content and target. Every niche has its own advertisers and peak moments.
- Seasonality. Ad budgets change a lot over the year. Q4 is peak season (best one) and when January comes, ad budgets drop. Advertisers do New Year’s diets too.
- Device. Traffic doesn’t always perform the same for desktop and mobile.
- Ad setup. Obviously the number, format, and position of the ads affects directly your RPM.
- Traffic source. Your users who come from different channels (social media, direct visit…) behave differently on your site.
Even though we can’t give you an exact number, we do have some tips for you. The best way to know if your RPM is good is to compare it with your own history. A healthy RPM grows steadily over time, not only in high season months like Q4. To get a fair picture, compare each month with the same month of the previous year. This way the seasonality effect is gone and shows the real progress. Very important detail: don’t forget that a good RPM should grow without hurting your user experience. More revenue is awesome, but if your readers have to pay the price… not worth it.
Success metrics that publishers use
As we already said, RPM is powerful, but as always, it works best combined with other metrics. This way you get the full picture of your ad revenue.
Here are some of the most useful metrics:
- CPM: the price advertisers pay per 1,000 ad impressions.
- eCPM: the effective revenue you get for 1,000 impressions, in all your demand sources.
- vCPM: what advertisers pay per 1,000 viewable impressions.
- Fill rate: the percentage of ad requests that actually show an ad.
- Viewability: the percentage of ads that count as seen.
We’ve put together a full guide on the metrics that drive advertising revenue and how to use them.
4 Metrics Publishers should track – Refinery89
How can publishers increase their RPM?
Believe us when we say the best way to increase your RPM is through yield optimization. This means using data based strategies to earn more from every ad impression. The goal is to balance revenue, fill rate and user experience.
Here are some proven ways to grow your RPM:
- Implement header bidding so more advertisers compete for each ad slot.
- Place ads where users actually scroll and read to improve your viewability.
- Set the right floor prices and adjust them to seasonal demand.
- Test high value ad formats and layouts to find your sweet spot.
- Optimize page speed so more ads load and users stay longer.
- Increase pages per session with strong internal linking and related content.
One golden rule: more ads doesn’t always mean more money. The best ad setup is the one your readers enjoy too. Quality over quantity! Always!
The key to a healthy RPM: keep an eye on it
Keep in mind that RPM isn’t a metric you check once and forget about. Track it regularly, test new strategies and adjust your setup along the way. Small improvements add up faster than you think.
Need a hand? We can help you! Get a free audit of your website and receive tailored recommendations from our experts.
