The essentials
- Formula: CPM = spend ÷ impressions × 1,000. It indicates the price of access to the audience, not the result.
- 2026 French ranges: Meta €6 to €12, TikTok €3 to €8, LinkedIn €25 to €60, YouTube €8 to €20; a rise of 30 to 60% on Meta between mid-November and Christmas.
- What pushes it up: a narrow audience, a competitive sector, a conversion objective, a creative with little pull, the fourth quarter.
- Good practice: read CPM alongside CTR and conversion rate; a high CPM on an audience that buys is better than a low CPM on an audience that ignores the ad.
CPM, cost per thousand impressions, is the unit of price for social advertising. Meta, LinkedIn and TikTok sell impressions at auction; every other cost (per click, per lead, per purchase) follows from it. Understanding what makes CPM vary lets you tell an access price problem from a creative or landing page problem. Here is the definition, the 2026 ranges for France and the levers available.
Definition and calculation
CPM = ad spend ÷ number of impressions × 1,000. A campaign that spends €900 for 100,000 impressions shows a CPM of €9. An impression is counted as soon as the ad appears on screen, according to each platform's rules: Meta counts the display from the first visible pixel, which explains part of the gap with the “viewable” CPM of display networks. The full definition of CPM sets out these conventions.
CPM says nothing about the result. It expresses only how much it costs to be seen by a thousand people in a given audience, in a given context. Two campaigns with the same CPM can have a cost per purchase that varies fivefold depending on the creative and the page.
2026 ranges by platform in France
| Platform | Typical CPM | Low CPM observed | High CPM observed | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meta (Facebook, Instagram) | €6 to €12 | €3 (broad audience, reach objective) | €25 and above (retargeting, finance, fourth quarter) | Reels and Stories cheaper than the news feed |
| TikTok | €3 to €8 | 1,5 € | 15 € | Plentiful inventory, audience under 35 |
| €25 to €60 | €15 (broad audience, awareness objective) | €100 and above (executives, targeted companies) | Precise professional targeting, low inventory | |
| YouTube | €8 to €20 | 4 € | 35 € | Non-skippable formats more expensive |
These ranges move with the season. On Meta, CPM rises by 30 to 60% between mid-November and the end of December, then falls back in January, the cheapest month of the year. Elections, sales periods and major sporting events create shorter peaks. Always compare a CPM with the same period the previous year.
The factors that make CPM vary
| Factor | Effect on CPM | Lever |
|---|---|---|
| Audience size | The narrower the audience, the more contested the auction | Broaden it, let the algorithm find the profiles, keep the useful exclusions |
| Campaign objective | A “conversions” objective targets rare profiles and costs 2 to 4 times more than a “reach” objective | Choose the objective according to the stage of the journey, not the CPM |
| Creative quality | Meta and TikTok favour ads that hold attention; a low CTR pushes CPM up | Test 3 to 5 creatives, renew them every 4 to 6 weeks |
| Sector | Finance, insurance, property, luxury: competition from high-margin advertisers | Accept a high CPM if the conversion rate follows |
| Placement | Facebook and Instagram feeds more expensive than Reels, Stories, Audience Network | Automatic placements, excluding the placements that do not convert |
| Frequency | Beyond 3 to 4 exposures per person, the effective CPM rises and attention falls | Cap the frequency, broaden or renew |
Reading CPM alongside the other metrics
CPM is read as a chain with CTR and conversion rate: CPC = CPM ÷ (CTR × 10); cost per conversion = CPC ÷ conversion rate. With a CPM of €9, a CTR of 1% gives a CPC of €0.90; a conversion rate of 3% gives a cost per conversion of €30. This breakdown says where to act:
- High CPM, normal CTR and conversion: an access price problem, review the audience, the season or the objective.
- Normal CPM, low CTR: a creative problem; the detail is in cost per click in social ads.
- Normal CPM and CTR, low conversion: a landing page or offer problem.
A low CPM is never an objective in itself. An “awareness” campaign at €3 CPM that reaches people outside the target costs more, per customer acquired, than a campaign at €15 that reaches the right profiles. Choosing the metrics to steer on is covered in the KPIs of an SMA campaign.
When CPM is the right metric to steer on
Three cases only:
- Awareness campaigns whose objective is the coverage of a defined target; you then steer on CPM and unique reach, with a frequency cap.
- Comparing platforms or placements at equivalent audience, to choose where to buy attention most cheaply.
- Diagnosing a rise in cost per conversion: if CPM has doubled and the rest is stable, the cause is external (season, competition) or linked to the audience.
For all performance campaigns, CPM remains a diagnostic variable, and steering is done on cost per conversion and ROAS.
How GreenRed helps
Rather than juggling several tools, GreenRed's SMO / SMA social media module brings these metrics together in a single dashboard, compares them over time and tells you which actions come first. You can try it free, with no card, from the Pricing.
Frequently asked questions
Why is LinkedIn's CPM so high?
Because the inventory is limited (members spend less time on LinkedIn than on Instagram or TikTok) and because targeting by job title, company and sector attracts B2B advertisers whose customer value runs into thousands of euros. A CPM of €40 remains profitable for a lead worth €500.
Does a rising CPM mean the campaign is deteriorating?
Not necessarily. CPM rises mechanically in the fourth quarter, when the audience narrows or when the objective moves from traffic to conversion. Deterioration is judged on cost per conversion and ROAS. If those stay stable despite a higher CPM, the campaign is reaching more qualified profiles.
How do you bring CPM down on Meta?
Broaden the audience, switch on automatic placements, improve the creative (ads with a high engagement rate get a lower CPM), cap the frequency and avoid conversion objectives on tiny audiences. A drop of 20 to 30% is realistic; aiming for 50% generally leads to reaching the wrong people.
Is CPM comparable between Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn?
No, because the audiences, the formats and the impression counting rules differ. The useful comparison is on the cost per conversion or the ROAS obtained on each platform for the same objective. CPM then serves to understand where the gap comes from: access price, click-through rate or conversion rate.