CPM (Cost Per Mille)

CPM, cost per mille (Latin for thousand), is the universal pricing unit in display, video, CTV, and DOOH advertising. A $10 CPM means the buyer pays $10 per 1,000 impressions, or $0.01 per impression. The "mille" denomination is a historical artifact from print advertising (paid per thousand copies); the convention stuck even as the units became microseconds-long digital events.

CPM ranges vary wildly by inventory quality. In 2026, US programmatic web display averaged ~$3 CPM, CTV pre-roll averaged ~$30 CPM, premium CTV (live sports, AVOD originals) ran $50-80 CPM, and high-quality DOOH place-based screens ran $15-40 CPM depending on venue category. The Trillboards default floor is set per venue in the pricing docs.

Buyers rarely care about pure CPM in isolation, they care about eCPM, which factors in viewability, fraud, and brand-safety pass rates. A $30 CTV CPM with 70% viewability has an effective CPM-against-viewable-impressions of ~$43. A $20 DOOH CPM with 95% viewability and sensor-counted audience has an effective CPM that beats the CTV inventory for many buyers.

Sellers should publish a public-rate-card CPM and a programmatic floor; buyers should always compare effective rather than nominal CPM when ranking inventory.