At work, you decide to see what movies are playing tonight. You go to yahoo.com, and are immediately shown six ads. At this point, we have 1 unique visitor, 1 visit, 1 page view, and 6 impressions. You click on 'movies,' and are taken to the page with your local showtimes [you've been here before]. On that page are six more ads, all about movies. We now have 1 unique visitor, 1 visit, 2 page views, and 12 impressions. One of the ads is the movie you want to see, so you click on it. A whole new browser window opens with the paramount pictures website in it. Now we have a 'click.' When done on that site, you close all your browser windows, and go home. Still only 1 unique visitor, 1 visit, 2 page views, 12 impressions, but now we have one click.

Once at home, you realize you've forgotten the time of the movie. You go through the whole routine again from home, except you don't click on any ads this time. Since you are visiting the same site from another computer, you count as another unique visitor, and another visit. So now the numbers are 2 unique visitors, 2 visits, 4 page views, 24 impressions, and 1 click.

On moday morning, you want to show a co-worker the ad you clicked on, because they want to see the movie. They look over your shoulder as you go through the same path to get to the movie ad. You both count as only one visitor, and since your computer was already there last week, you don't count as another unique visitor. But it is another visit, and 2 more page views, and of course, one more click.

After all is said and done, we have 2 unique visitors, 3 visits, 6 page views, 36 impressions, and 2 clicks.

If your company had an ad on yahoo, and yahoo had 12 advertisers who wanted to be on those pages, you would come up 1 time in 12. Your ad would have been shown 3 times, on average [i.e. 3 impressions]. Seems pretty meager, doesn't it? that's why we use numbers in the thousands, and try to get as much traffic through our site as possible.