Carl measures how your content performs across social platforms — not just how many times it appeared, but how effectively your brand was actually seen and remembered. This guide explains each metric in plain language so you can read your reports with confidence.

Tip: Inside the tool, you can also hover over any metric's icon for a quick explanation.

Impressions — The total number of times your content was displayed. We pull this directly from Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. TikTok doesn't report impressions, so we estimate them from view counts.

Reach — How many unique people saw your content. This comes straight from Facebook and Instagram, but because it can't be de-duplicated across platforms, we report it per network rather than as one combined number. For TikTok and YouTube (where reach isn't available), we estimate it from views.

VTR (View-Through Rate) — The percentage of viewers who watched a video all the way to 100%.

Engagement Rate — How actively people interacted with your content, measured as total interactions (likes, comments, shares) divided by impressions, shown as a percentage.

These go beyond standard social stats to measure whether your brand was actually seen, not just technically on screen.

Branded Impressions — Impressions where your brand or key message (RTB) was genuinely visible. For video, we detect your brand in the content and count it as "branded" only if a viewer saw it for at least one second — weighted by how many people were still watching at that exact moment (based on the video's retention curve). For static posts, every impression counts as branded.

Completed Impressions — A step further: these count only when a viewer watched 100% of your detected brand message. For static posts, every impression counts as completed.

Brand Attention Time — The total time people spent actually watching your brand message, from when it first appeared to when it finished. It reflects both how many people watched and how much of the audience stayed engaged throughout.

Completed Message View Rate — The share of impressions where your full brand message was seen, calculated as completed impressions divided by total impressions, as a percentage.

Based on the production or promotion costs you share with us, we calculate what you're paying to reach your audience:

CPM — Cost per thousand impressions. (Total cost ÷ (Impressions ÷ 1,000))

Branded CPM — Cost per thousand branded impressions, so you can see the true cost of impressions where your brand was actually visible.

Completed CPM — Cost per thousand completed impressions, showing what you pay for fully-viewed brand messages.