Example: If your ad had 30,000 impressions and an average frequency of 3.0, it reached 10,000 people.
Why Reach matters
Reach shows how large your audience really was. Impressions can come from a small group seeing the ad many times, while reach shows how many different people you actually got in front of.
It matters most for awareness goals. Together with frequency, it tells you whether you are widening your audience or repeating the message to the same people.
How to read it
There is no universal target. Reach depends on budget, audience size and campaign goal. Compare it with the size of the audience you are targeting to see how much of it you covered.
Platforms estimate reach and may calculate it differently, and people using several devices can be counted more than once, so use it to compare your own campaigns rather than as an exact headcount.
How to improve it
- Widen the audience or add placements if reach is stuck.
- Raise the budget on campaigns that are reaching new people efficiently.
- Refresh creative so the platform delivers it to fresh audiences.
- Watch frequency, so growth in reach is not replaced by repetition.
Common mistakes
- Treating reach and impressions as the same number.
- Treating the platform estimate as an exact count of people.
- Adding reach from different platforms, since the same person may be counted on each.
- Chasing reach on a campaign whose goal is conversions.
“What was the reach and frequency of each campaign last month, and what was the cost per thousand people reached?”
Connect Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn Ads, Snapchat Ads, TikTok Ads and ask in plain English. You get the number, the evidence behind it, and the next step.
Try for free