Everyone asks what a good CPM is. The honest answer involves your niche, your creative and your margins, but some ranges help you spot when something is genuinely off.
What we are seeing across accounts
Across our managed accounts this quarter: CPMs sit between $14 and $38 for prospecting, CTR averages 2.2% on feed placements, and lead gen CPLs run $18 to $65 depending on the niche. Ecommerce ROAS blends around 4.2x for accounts that have been optimised past the three-month mark. Numbers outside these ranges are not automatically bad, but they are a reason to look closer.
The metrics that actually predict profit
Watch cost per landing page view and cost per initiated checkout, not just CPM. A $30 CPM with a 4% CTR beats a $15 CPM with a 1% CTR every day of the week. Hook rate, meaning three-second video views divided by impressions, tells you whether creative is the problem before you blame targeting.
“A benchmark is a question, not a verdict. It tells you where to dig, not what to do.”
When to worry and when to wait
Give new campaigns 5 to 7 days before judging. Meta's learning phase makes early numbers look worse than they are. Worry when frequency climbs past 3 with falling CTR, when CPM jumps 40% without an auction reason, or when conversions drop while clicks stay steady, which usually means tracking broke.
Want your account benchmarked against these ranges? Our Meta Ads management starts with a free audit that does exactly that.
