Earned Media Value (EMV)
Earned Media Value tells you what the visibility your ambassadors generated would have cost if you had bought it as advertising instead.
Every share your ambassadors publish reaches real people, and some of them click through to your site. Both of those have a market price: advertisers pay for clicks and impressions. EMV takes the clicks and impressions your ambassadors earned organically and prices them at those same advertising rates.
How it's calculated
We value each post on the outcome that matters for that post:
Type of post | What we value it on | Rate used |
Post that contains a link | The clicks it generated | Your cost per click (CPC) |
Post without a link | The people it reached | Your cost per mille (CPM, the cost per 1,000 impressions) |
Formula:
EMV = (clicks on link posts × CPC) + (impressions on posts without a link ÷ 1,000 × CPM)
What EMV does and doesn't include
It counts what actually happened, real clicks and real impressions on posts that were really published. Nothing is estimated from network size or "potential reach."
Impressions are only available for posts shared through our API share feature on supported networks (see Engagement metrics for shared posts below). Where we can't measure impressions, that post's reach isn't in your EMV, so your real value is, if anything, higher than the number you see.
EMV covers social shares. Value generated by other campaign types is reported separately as Engagement Value.
How is EMV defined per share type and network?
Network | Share with link (*) | Media share without a link |
Clicks | Media as link → Clicks | |
Facebook Page | Clicks | Impressions |
Clicks | Impressions | |
LinkedIn Company Page | Clicks | Impressions |
X | Clicks | Impressions |
Clicks | Media as link → Clicks | |
Clicks | Media as link → Clicks | |
Clicks | Media as link → Clicks | |
Clicks | Media as link → Clicks | |
Google Business Profile | Clicks | untracked |
Clicks | Media as link → Clicks | |
untracked | untracked | |
Instagram Company Page | untracked | untracked |
Where your CPC and CPM come from
You don't have to guess at your own advertising rates, and you don't have to keep them up to date.
We pull suggested advertising bids per industry for Europe directly from the LinkedIn ad campaign manager and apply the rate for your industry to your account.
We refresh this data every quarter. Advertising gets more expensive over time, and your EMV moves with it. If advertising in your industry gets cheaper, your rate goes down too.
Why your rates can change
Your CPC and CPM are not fixed values you set once. They follow the quarterly index, so a share published today may be valued slightly differently from a share published last year. That's intentional: it keeps your year-over-year comparison honest instead of measuring 2026 activity against 2021 advertising prices.
Because EMV is calculated on your full history, a change to your rates is reflected across your whole reporting timeline, not just from today onward.
Click cost
Existing customers only. Click cost is no longer included in reporting for accounts created after the EMV launch.
Click cost measures the same clicks that EMV values, but on their own:
Click cost = Number of clicks × CPC
If you've been reporting on click cost, nothing you've reported is wrong; EMV is the broader number that includes it, plus the value of the posts that never had a link to click.
Click cost will be removed in the near future.
Engagement metrics for shared posts
Ambassify also lets you measure engagement performance directly on your ambassadors' shared social posts. These metrics are available for posts shared via our API share feature and supported for LinkedIn (personal or company), Facebook Pages, and X (Twitter).
Available metrics
Clicks: The number of times someone clicked the shared link. This doesn't include likes or comments.
Impressions: The number of times a post was shown in a user's feed, search results, or on your company page.
Reach: The number of unique people who saw the post.
Reactions: The total likes, favorites, or other reactions (e.g., 👍 ❤️ 🎉).
Comments: The number of comments received on the shared post.
Reposts: The number of times the post was reshared.
Requirements
To see these metrics, make sure that:
API share is enabled on your account.
The post is on a supported network (LinkedIn, LinkedIn Companies, Facebook Pages, or X).
The post was not shared anonymously from a landing page campaign.
Why these metrics matter
Together, these metrics help you:
Put a number on advocacy: Report the value of your program in the currency your management already understands, advertising spend.
Understand ambassador impact: See which ambassadors drive the most reach, clicks, and engagement.
Identify top-performing content: Learn which campaigns or posts resonate best with audiences.
Track growth: Monitor improvements in reach, engagement, and overall advocacy value over time.