Standardized Metrics for More Consistent and Accurate Reporting

If you’ve ever found it challenging to benchmark performance across platforms or compare your creator campaign results to other marketing channels, you’re not alone. Metrics like Video Views and Impressions are defined differently depending on the platform—and those definitions often change over time. That makes it harder to tell a clear, consistent story with your data.

That’s why, starting April 16, we’re updating how these metrics are defined and displayed in CreatorIQ. The goal? To align creator marketing reporting with marketing industry standards and help you make smarter, more confident decisions with consistent and accurate data.

What’s changing

Starting April 16, Impressions will refer to any view that lasts between 1 millisecond and 1 second. This applies to platforms that measure views within that range: Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.

Video Views will reflect longer engagements—views lasting more than three seconds. You’ll continue to see this label for platforms where that definition already applies: YouTube, Twitch, Pinterest, Facebook, and X.

We’re also retroactively applying these definitions to your historical campaign data, so your reporting stays consistent.

Why it matters

This update ensures your reporting in CreatorIQ stays consistent across platforms and over time, regardless of how individual platforms define their metrics.

Social platforms differ in how they label Impressions and Video Views—and those definitions can shift. With this update, we’re introducing standard definitions, so you can compare performance apples-to-apples. Plus, we’re aligning to paid media definitions, making it that much easier to compare your creator campaigns to other marketing channels. 

And because the update is retroactive, your past campaign data will automatically align with the new definitions—making it easy to track performance trends over time.
You might notice:

• Impressions increase slightly, since they now include shorter views (1 millisecond to 1 second).
• Video Views decrease slightly, due to the stricter definition for sustained engagement.

Ultimately, this change brings more clarity and consistency to your reporting—so you can make more informed decisions across every campaign. 

What you might want to review 

This change doesn’t require any setup on your end. That said, it’s a good idea to review how you’re using Video Views in your reporting templates. If you’ve built custom KPIs or are sorting creators or posts based on views, take a moment to confirm those metrics still reflect what you want to measure.

What stays the same

This update is about how performance data is defined and labeled—not the data itself. Your underlying campaign results aren’t changing. We’re simply updating metric labels and definitions to reflect a more standardized cross-platform approach.

Let’s make reporting easier together

We know shifts in metrics can raise questions, and we’re here to support you however we can. If you’d like a second set of eyes on your reporting setup or want to walk through the potential impact, your Customer Success Manager is always happy to help.

And if you want to dig into all the details, check out our support article.