Cost Per Thousand, or CPM, advertising is a type of online advertising that bases charges on how many thousands of times an advertisement is shown on a Web site. The "M" in "CPM" stands for "mille," the Latin word for "thousand." Cost Per Thousand advertising is the most widely used online advertising costing method, and Google's AdWords is the most popular choice for CPM advertising.

The main advantage of using CPM advertising is that you are able to choose the Web sites that will display your advertisements. You can target a specific demographic group by selecting certain Web sites and also determine how much exposure you want your product or service to have. This helps eliminate advertising charges for Internet users who are not genuinely interested in your product or service. Besides selecting great Web sites for your advertisements, you can also choose specific Web sites that you do not want to use to display your advertisements. All this results in a more focused advertising campaign and can lead to increased sales for your business.

You begin your CPM advertising by placing a maximum CPM bid. This is how you indicate the maximum amount you are willing to pay for every thousand advertisement displays, or impressions. Your maximum CPM bid covers times your advertisement is shown, whether or not the user clicks on the ad or not. Remember that Cost Per Thousand advertising is very popular, and the bids for using this advertising method will be competitive.

Cost Per Thousand advertising is a placement-targeted advertising tool, which means you are in charge of determining where your advertisement will be placed. To use Google AdWords for CPM advertising, your selected Web sites must be part of the Google Content Network. Google Adwords will supply you with a Placement Tool to help you find Web sites that will promote your business effectively.

By using the Google Placement Tool, you can choose your advertising Web sites by entering the site's specific website address. The Placement Tool can give you a list of Web sites to choose from if you enter a description of the advertisement topic. You can also browse through the Placement Tool's diverse list of categories and subcategories to find appropriate Web sites to place your advertisement.

Another option is to choose the specific demographic group your advertisement targets. The Placement Tool will provide you a list of sites that are visited frequently by people in that demographic group. Requesting Web sites by description, category, or demographic group will result in a list of up to 100 Web sites to choose from. Using Google AdWords' Placement Tool is a simple way to direct your advertisements to your intended audience.

Google's Cost Per Thousand advertisements can be either text-based or image-based. If you choose to have an image-based advertisement, the image can be animated. Text-based advertisements will expand or contract to fit the Web page location size. AdWords will also keep a daily log of your advertisement's impressions, allowing you to keep track of how often your advertisement is displayed on a Web site.