Meta has officially begun phasing out Impressions as a metric on Facebook and shifting to Views across their Page Insights API. This change was first announced in late 2023 and is now being rolled out more broadly, impacting any brand that uses third-party reporting tools like Sprinklr or Sprout Social. These platforms will now pull Views instead of Impressions, aligning with the metrics already found in Meta Business Suite and the Facebook app.
So, What’s The Difference?
Although Impressions and Views are often used interchangeably, they’re not quite the same:
- Impressions count every time content appears on a screen, even for a split second. If someone scrolls past your post without stopping or engaging, it still counts as an impression.
- Views, while similar for static content, require video content (like Reels) to actually play, even briefly, for a view to be counted.
In theory, this should result in lower counts for Views compared to Impressions. But with autoplay as the default for most videos in-feed, you likely won’t notice much change.
What You Need To Do
- Expect a slight dip in reported numbers if you’ve been relying heavily on Impressions.
- Update your reporting frameworks to reflect Views moving forward, which includes dashboards, benchmarks, and KPIs.
- Be cautious with year-over-year comparisons. Meta will retroactively rename past Impressions data as Views (pre-2025), even though the calculation method differs. This makes direct comparisons misleading.
TL;DR
Meta has converted the Impressions metric to Views, and will be sunsetting Impressions as a metric. The update streamlines metrics, but requires brands to adjust how they track performance. While the change won’t drastically affect most content reporting, it does call for careful metric migration and thoughtful benchmarking.
