Facebook is changing how it measures organic Page impressions

Facebook is updating how it filters repeat organic impressions for Pages. According to a Facebook spokesperson, the company is shortening the time-frame by which it calculates the metric.

The initial announcement came via an update last week to a Facebook Business blog post published more than a year ago. The company said it is changing the way it measures Page impressions to align with the methodology it uses for ads: “This is not a change in distribution, but a change in the way we filter out repeat organic impressions that occur within a short amount of time.”

A Facebook spokesperson told Marketing Land that the update will be rolling out over the coming weeks.

Why we should care

This update is noteworthy as it clarifies that a drop in impressions isn’t necessarily a drop in the Page’s performance, but a result of Facebook changing how it calculates organic impressions. For marketers measuring their organic engagement metrics against their impressions — the updated metric may reflect improved engagement rates, as impression numbers may drop without impacting engagement rates.

According to Facebook, the update is designed to, “Make it easier for businesses to make comparisons across paid and organic channels.” In other words, creating a more of an apples-to-apples comparison between organic and paid results.

Facebook counts an ad impression by the number of times an instance of an ad is on screen for the first time: “If an ad is on screen and someone scrolls down, and then scrolls back up to the same ad, that counts as 1 impression. If an ad is on screen for someone 2 different times in a day, that counts as 2 impressions.”

More on the news

• In February 2018, Facebook announced it was updating how it measured organic Page reach and released a redesigned Page Insights dashboard on mobile.
• Facebook would not give specifics in terms of the timeframe it uses to filter out repeat organic impressions but said some Page owners may not notice a difference at all.
• Organic engagement for brands on Facebook has been in decline for some time but took a major hit in January 2018 when the company changed its algorithm to de-emphasize organic content from brands while prioritizing posts from friends and family.