Paid media basics
Reach
The number of different people who saw an ad at least once in a period.
What it is
Reach counts people, not impressions. Together with frequency it describes how widely and how often a campaign was seen.
Why it matters
For lead generation and e-commerceGrowth needs new people. A campaign whose reach stops growing is selling to the same audience again and again.
In practice
Platforms estimate it from logged-in users and devices; it is reported per campaign and period.
A common mistake
Adding reach numbers across platforms. The same person counts once on each, so the sum overstates the people reached.
All terms