Reach

Analytics

Also: Unique reach · Potential reach · Ad reach

Reach = number of unique people who saw your content or ad at least once

What it isUnique people who saw your content

vs impressionsReach counts people, impressions count views

Why it mattersMeasures how many different people you are reaching

Quick definition

Reach is the number of unique individuals who saw your content or ad at least once, within a given time period. Unlike impressions, which count every view including multiple views by the same person, reach counts each person only once.

Where it shows up in the data

Organic vs paid reach

Organic reach is how many people see your content without paid promotion. Paid reach is the audience your ad spend delivers. On most social platforms, organic reach is declining and paid reach is the primary growth lever.

Reach vs impressions

If 1,000 people each saw your ad 3 times, you have 1,000 reach and 3,000 impressions. Impressions divided by reach gives you average frequency.

Frequency

How many times the average person in your reach has seen your content. High frequency on a small reach means you are overexposing the same people. You want to balance reach and frequency.

Potential reach

The estimated size of the audience your targeting could reach if fully served. Used in campaign planning to size your opportunity before you spend.

What it actually means

Reach is a measure of audience breadth. A campaign with 10,000 reach and 1.5 average frequency has exposed your message to 10,000 different people roughly 1.5 times each. A campaign with 2,000 reach and 8 average frequency has beaten the same 2,000 people over the head eight times. Both have 16,000 impressions but very different implications for brand perception and audience fatigue.

Reach tells you how wide your net is. Frequency tells you how many times you threw it at the same fish.

How to calculate it

Frequency = Total impressions / Reach Cost per reach = Total spend / Reach

Worked example. Campaign spent $2,000. Total impressions: 50,000. Reach: 12,500. Frequency = 50,000/12,500 = 4x. Cost per unique person reached = $2,000/12,500 = $0.16.

The Australian context

Australian digital advertising audiences are smaller than US and UK markets, which means audience fatigue from high frequency happens faster. A frequency cap of 3-5 per week is often appropriate for Australian campaigns where the total addressable audience is limited.

Where people get this wrong

Reporting impressions instead of reach as a measure of audience sizeImpressions inflate your apparent audience size. 1 million impressions from 50,000 people is very different from 1 million impressions from 500,000 people. Use reach for audience measurement.

Running brand awareness campaigns without monitoring frequencyHigh frequency on a small audience produces banner blindness and negative brand perception. Always set frequency caps on awareness campaigns and monitor reach growth over time.

Common questions

What is a good reach for an organic social post?

It depends heavily on your follower count and platform. On Facebook, 3-8% of followers seeing an organic post is typical. On LinkedIn, a well-performing post might reach 20-50% of your connections. On Instagram, organic reach is 5-15% of followers.

How is reach measured in email marketing?

In email marketing, reach is typically measured as unique opens or unique click rate. Each subscriber who opens the email is counted once, regardless of how many times they open it.

Keep exploring

About New Rebellion

New Rebellion is a marketing intelligence consultancy. We build tools, score Australian businesses on how their marketing actually performs, and publish Debrief every day. This dictionary is part of how we work in the open.

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