In advertising metrics, the term that measures how many individual people are reached by the message is called:

• A. Reach
• B. Frequency
• C. Impressions
• D. Coverage

Answer: (A)

Reach is the metric that counts how many individual people are reached by the message. It reflects the breadth of your audience by counting unique viewers who saw the ad at least once within a set period. Think of it this way: if 1,000 people see your ad once, the reach is 1,000; if those same 1,000 people see it twice, reach stays 1,000, but impressions would be 2,000 and frequency would be 2. Frequency measures how often the average person sees the message, while impressions sum every exposure, including repeats. Coverage can refer to the portion of the target audience or geographic area your message could reach, but it isn’t a precise count of unique individuals. So, for the goal of knowing how many distinct people were exposed, reach is the best fit.