reach
REECH
/riːtʃ/
The total number of unique people who see your content or advertisement.
Reach counts unique individuals, whereas 'impressions' counts every time the ad is shown (even to the same person).
The story behind the word. From the Old English 'ræcan', meaning to stretch out or extend. It originally described the physical act of stretching your hand to touch something. In media, it describes the 'stretch' of your message across a population.
Word relationships
- exposure: Exposure is being seen; reach is the specific count of who saw it.
Commonly confused with
- impressions: Reach is unique people; impressions is total views (one person can have 5 impressions).
Collocations
- organic reach
- paid reach
- global reach
Idioms & expressions
- within reach
- out of reach
Example sentences
- "The campaign had a massive reach, appearing on the screens of over 50 million users." Advertising metrics.
- "We are trying to expand our reach by using more popular hashtags." Social media goals.
Memory hook
How far can your message 'reach' its hand into the crowd? The size of the crowd.
When not to use
Don't use it to describe how much people liked the content; that is engagement.
Fun facts
- Facebook's 'Organic Reach' has famously declined over the years, forcing brands to pay for 'Paid Reach'.
Explore more words
circulation, narrowcast, impact, simulcast, distribution, audience
Take your vocabulary further with LangBlitz
Our English vocabulary app: FSRS spaced repetition, 5,000+ curated words across 119 topic groups, CEFR A1 to C2. Explore your mastery with the beautiful Vocabulary World feature.