What is the difference?

Impressions vs Sessions

Ad Impressions

Sessions

What is it?

Ad Impressions (IMPR) is a count of the total number of times digital advertisements display on someone’s screen within the publisher's network.

A Session, sometimes called a Visit, is the set of interactions, or web requests, made within a given time frame by a single user visiting a specific website. A single Session often contains multiple activities, such as page views, events, or transactions. In web analytics, a session is either capped by exiting the website or by a period of user inactivity.

Who is it for?

Advertising Manager

Marketing Manager

Marketing Automation Specialist

Formula

ƒ Count(Ad Impressions)

ƒ Count(Sessions)

Example

Suppose you are trying to better understand the performance of an ad campaign that you are running on Google or Facebook. Impressions are a good leading indicator. You look into your ad account and see that you have been running 4 different ad variations within a campaign. Ad 1: 16,484 impressions Ad 2: 10,245 impressions Ad 3: 9,198 impressions Ad 4: 435 impressions This means that Ad 1 is receiving the most impressions, so has the highest likelihood of being clicked.

A small-scale online furniture retailer enjoys success selling furniture through their website. They hold an end-of-year sale and see a spike in interest, which results in their website having 5,000 sessions in one week and 4,500 sessions the next week. The website's Sessions count for those two weeks is 9,500.