Metrics and measurement
CPE
CPE is the cost of a single engagement, calculated as the fee divided by total engagements. It measures what a brand paid for each like, comment, save, or share.
Also called cost per engagement.
CPE is a better efficiency measure than CPM when the goal is attention rather than sheer visibility, because it rewards content people acted on rather than scrolled past. It is the number that tends to favour smaller creators.
It treats all engagement types as equal, which they are not. A save or a share signals far more intent than a like, so where the platform reports them separately it is worth looking at the mix rather than the single figure.
Related terms
- Engagement rate
- Engagement rate is the share of an audience that interacts with a post, calculated as total engagements divided by a chosen denominator, most often followers or reach, expressed as a percentage.
- CPM
- CPM is the cost of a thousand impressions, calculated as the fee divided by impressions, multiplied by one thousand. It is the standard way to compare the efficiency of creator deals against each other and against paid media.
- Influencer tiers
- Influencer tiers group creators by audience size: nano (roughly 1,000 to 10,000 followers), micro (10,000 to 100,000), mid-tier (100,000 to 500,000), macro (500,000 to 1 million), and mega or celebrity (over 1 million).
Distinct is the workspace where brands and creators run the work behind these terms. For brands, for creators, or back to the full glossary.