Paid reach

What is paid reach?

Paid reach is the number of unique people who saw a post because you paid to put it in front of them. Any reach that comes from an ad, a boosted post, or a promoted campaign is paid reach. You set a budget and a target audience, the platform serves the post, and the people it serves count as paid reach.

It's the counterpart to organic reach, the audience you earn for free through the algorithm and your followers. Total reach is the two added together, minus the overlap of people who saw the post both ways.

Why paid reach matters

Paid reach buys predictability. Organic reach depends on the algorithm deciding your post is worth spreading; paid reach lets you guarantee a post reaches a defined audience on a defined timeline. That's why it's the lever for launches, time-sensitive offers, and reaching people who don't follow you yet.

It also lets you target precisely. You can put a post in front of a specific age, location, interest, or lookalike audience, which organic distribution can't promise.

What to watch with paid reach

• Cost per result: paid reach is only as good as what it converts. Track CPM and the downstream conversion rate, not just how many people you reached
• Audience overlap: boosting a post your followers already saw organically wastes budget on repeat reach
• Reach vs frequency: a campaign can show the same post to the same people many times, which inflates impressions without growing unique reach
• The drop-off: paid reach stops the moment the budget runs out, unlike organic reach that can keep trickling in

Paid reach vs organic reach

Keep them separate in every report. Organic reach tells you whether the content earns attention on its own; paid reach tells you what your budget bought. A post with strong organic reach is a good candidate to boost, since you're amplifying something that's already proven it can land. Mixing the two into one "reach" number hides which of your wins came from the content and which came from the wallet.