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.