What is reach?

• A. The potential audience that a message can reach.
• B. The total number of messages sent per day.
• C. The geographic area your ads target.
• D. The number of followers you currently have on social media.

Answer: (C)

Reach is the number of unique people who will see your message. It measures audience size, focusing on how many distinct individuals could be exposed to the content, not how many times it’s shown or where it’s shown. The best way to think about it is: reach equals the potential audience within your targeting that could see the message. Geographic area your ads target describes where you’re allowed to show the ad and helps limit the reach, but by itself it’s not the reach—reach is about how many different people are actually accessible within that area. For example, if you target a city with 100,000 adults and your ad is delivered to 80,000 unique people, your reach is 80,000. If those people see the ad a total of 120,000 times, impressions are 120,000 and frequency is 1.5. The number of messages sent per day, or your follower count, do not define reach.