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.

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.

Published and updated dates

Date created: Oct 12, 2022

Latest update: Jun 13, 2023

Date created: Oct 12, 2022

Latest update: Oct 12, 2022