Here is a number that stopped me cold when I first ran it. A branded pen reaches a thousand people for about 45 cents. A LinkedIn ad, aimed at those same thousand people, can cost anywhere from $33 to $65. Same reach. One costs less than a cup of vending-machine coffee. The other costs more than a decent lunch.
That gap is not a rounding error or a cherry-picked stunt. It held up across every comparison I could throw at it. So we did the obvious thing: we put 18 categories of promotional products on the same scale as 14 of the biggest advertising channels going, from social and streaming to podcasts, billboards, and print, and ranked the lot by a single honest metric. Cost per impression. Or CPM, if you speak media-buyer.
What came back is the most useful one-page argument for promotional products I have seen, partly because it does not pretend promo wins everything. It doesn’t. But where it wins, it wins by a distance that makes you look twice.
What we actually measured
CPM is the great equalizer of advertising. Every channel, from a Super Bowl spot to a bus-shelter poster, gets quoted in cost to reach a thousand people, which means you can finally line them up side by side without comparing apples to lawnmowers. The promotional product numbers come from the Advertising Specialty Institute’s 2026 Global Advertising Impressions Study, the longest-running research of its kind, using U.S. data. The channel benchmarks come from two 2026 industry sources, Adsposure and Evok Advertising. We used each channel’s low end wherever there was a range, which means the comparison is deliberately stacked against promo, not for it. Even handicapped that way, the result is lopsided.
Here is the whole thing, cheapest to most expensive, green to red.
Promotional products vs. other advertising, by cost per impression
Cost per impression is where promotional products quietly outperform almost everything else in marketing. The table below puts every promo category from the calculator side by side with the major advertising channels, all in the industry-standard unit: CPM, the cost to reach one thousand people. Green is cheaper, red is pricier, and the ranking is honest. Some promo items beat every channel on the board; a few pricier ones land right in the mix with social media and print. That is the truth the data tells, and it is more useful than a sales pitch.
Methodology. Channel CPMs are 2025ā2026 U.S. industry benchmarks, sourced per row and listed in full below. Promotional product CPMs are calculated as price per item divided by lifetime impressions, multiplied by 1,000, using typical U.S. bulk prices and the lifetime impression figures from the 2026 ASI Global Advertising Impressions Study. Last updated June 2026.
| Product or channel | CPM (per 1,000 impressions) | Basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writing instruments ā Promo product | $0.45 | $0.85 item / 1,900 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Bags ā Promo product | $0.71 | $3.5 item / 4,900 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Magnets ā Promo product | $0.87 | $0.65 item / 750 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Buttons, lanyards & stickersPromo product | $2.08 | $1.25 item / 600 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| T-shirtsPromo product | $2.14 | $7.5 item / 3,500 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| HeadwearPromo product | $2.50 | $10 item / 4,000 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Fleece & jacketsPromo product | $2.78 | $25 item / 9,000 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Online display adsAd channel | $1ā$8 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Adsposure 2026 |
| Housewares & toolsPromo product | $3.54 | $4.25 item / 1,200 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Transit (bus & shelter)Ad channel | $3ā$7 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Adsposure 2026 |
| UmbrellasPromo product | $4.35 | $10 item / 2,300 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Out-of-home / billboardsAd channel | $3ā$10 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Adsposure 2026 |
| Polo shirtsPromo product | $5.17 | $15 item / 2,900 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Power banksPromo product | $5.56 | $10 item / 1,800 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Health & safetyPromo product | $6.25 | $2.5 item / 400 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| DrinkwarePromo product | $6.54 | $8.5 item / 1,300 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Notebooks & notepadsPromo product | $7.00 | $3.5 item / 500 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Short-form video (TikTok, YouTube, Reels)Ad channel | $4ā$9 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Evokad 2026 |
| Radio (AM/FM)Ad channel | $4ā$12 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Adsposure 2026 |
| Social media (Meta, X)Ad channel | $5ā$9 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Evokad 2026 |
| Desk accessoriesPromo product | $7.08 | $8.5 item / 1,200 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| CalendarsPromo product | $7.73 | $4.25 item / 550 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| USB drivesPromo product | $10.62 | $4.25 item / 400 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| BlanketsPromo product | $14.17 | $17 item / 1,200 lifetime impressions | AIO Ā· ASI 2026 |
| Streaming audio (Spotify, Pandora)Ad channel | $10ā$35 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Adsposure 2026 |
| Connected TV / streamingAd channel | $15ā$40 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Adsposure 2026 |
| PodcastsAd channel | $18ā$50 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Adsposure 2026 |
| Retail media (Amazon, Walmart)Ad channel | $20ā$60 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Adsposure 2026 |
| TV (broadcast & cable)Ad channel | $20ā$45 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Adsposure 2026 |
| MagazineAd channel | $25ā$55 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Adsposure 2026 |
| LinkedIn (B2B)Ad channel | $33ā$65 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Evokad 2026 |
| NewspaperAd channel | $45ā$180 | Industry range, 2025ā2026 | Adsposure 2026 |
How to read this, honestly. Two things matter and a single table cannot show both at once. First, a promotional product’s CPM is a one-time cost spread across the item’s whole lifetime, often several years. A channel CPM is recurring: you pay it again for every new thousand impressions, every campaign. That asymmetry is the real headline, pay once for a pen and get seen for years. Second, an impression is not always equal. A targeted, sound-on social video and a glance at a logo on a mug both count as impressions, but they carry different attention and intent. Promotional products win decisively on cost and longevity. They do not win on instant reach or precise targeting, so they work best as the durable, always-on layer of a media mix rather than a one-to-one replacement for digital.
ā marks the three lowest-cost promo categories. Promo CPMs shift with what you actually pay per item, so use the calculator above for your exact numbers. Channel ranges are directional industry averages, not fixed rates, and real costs vary by market, season, targeting, and competition. LinkedIn is shown separately from other social platforms because its B2B CPMs run several times higher.
Sources & citations
- Adsposure. 2026 U.S. Media CPM Benchmark Report (Version 1.0, April 2026). Cross-channel CPM benchmarks built on Solomon Partners methodology across 23 U.S. media categories. Used for display, out-of-home, transit, radio, streaming audio, connected TV, podcasts, retail media, TV, magazine, and newspaper figures.
- Evok Advertising. The Social Media Advertising Platform Guide 2026 (March 2026), drawing on the Gupta Media Social CPM Tracker. Used for social media (Meta, X), short-form video (TikTok, YouTube, Reels), and LinkedIn B2B figures.
- Advertising Specialty Institute. 2026 Global Advertising Impressions Study (U.S. findings), as analyzed in our own guide to promotional products with the best ROI. Used for all promotional product lifetime impression figures.
The honest part, because it matters
If a marketing study only ever flatters the thing it is selling, you already know to distrust it. So let me be straight about what this table is not telling you.
Two numbers are hiding inside every row, and the table can only show one at a time. A promotional product’s cost is paid once, then spread across years of impressions. A channel’s CPM is paid again and again, every campaign, forever. That asymmetry is the whole ballgame, and it cuts in promo’s favor, but it also means you cannot read the two as if they work the same way. You buy a pen one time. You rent a LinkedIn audience every single month.
And an impression is not always an impression. A sound-on, full-screen video ad that a person chose to watch is a different animal from a glance at a logo on someone’s travel mug. Promo products win decisively on cost and on longevity. They do not win on precise targeting, and they do not win on instant reach. If you need five thousand qualified B2B leads by Friday, a pen is not your answer. If you want your brand quietly in someone’s hand every day for three years at a fraction of a cent per view, nothing else on this list comes close.
You can see this honesty in the table itself. Look where promotional blankets land, around $14, right in the thick of social media and magazines. USB drives, near $11, sit in the same neighborhood. Those are promo products too, and they are not cheap per impression. Pretending otherwise would be easy and dishonest, so we didn’t.
The winners nobody expects
The three cheapest slots go to the least glamorous items in the catalog. Pens at 45 cents. Bags at 71. Magnets at 87. None of them will ever headline a campaign, and all three quietly humiliate every digital, broadcast, and print channel on cost per impression. The reason is boring and beautiful: they are cheap to make and people keep them for years. A magnet lives on a fridge for a decade. A tote gets used twice a week until it falls apart. Cost divided by a mountain of impressions equals a number with a lot of zeros after the decimal point.
Meanwhile, the flashier, pricier promo items behave more like premium media. That is not a knock on them. A fleece jacket someone wears for years builds a kind of goodwill a display ad never will, and 83% of people say a jacket makes them more likely to do business with the advertiser who gave it to them. But if pure cost per impression is your scoreboard, the humble stuff wins.
What this means for your budget
Not “cancel your digital spend.” That would be a dumb takeaway and I am not going to insult you with it. Targeted digital does things promo cannot. The smarter read is that promotional products belong in the media mix as the cheap, durable, always-on layer, the thing that keeps working between campaigns, long after the ad budget for the quarter has run dry. Most marketers file promo under “swag” and never once compare it to their paid channels on the metric they use for everything else. Do that comparison, and the case makes itself.
If you would rather run your own numbers than trust an average, and prices move constantly these days, whether it is inflation or some geopolitical curveball, we built a free calculator that does exactly that. Enter what you pay per item, pick a category, and it shows your real cost per impression, your effective impressions, an ROI index, and where your specific item lands against all 14 of these channels. No sign-up, no catch. Try the promotional products ROI calculator here.
Where the numbers come from
Promotional product impressions and retention figures are from the 2026 Global Advertising Impressions Study by the Advertising Specialty Institute (U.S. findings), the industry’s benchmark research since 2006. Per-item CPMs are calculated from typical U.S. bulk prices divided by those lifetime impressions. Channel CPMs are 2025 to 2026 U.S. industry ranges from the Adsposure 2026 Media CPM Benchmark and the Evok 2026 Social Advertising Guide. All figures are directional and vary by market, season, and targeting, which is exactly why the calculator lets you plug in your own.
Vitalijus Glotovas is with All In One Merchandise, a U.S. promotional products distributor based in St. Petersburg, Florida, that has stored and printed custom merchandise in the USA for more than 12 years. Questions about the data or a campaign? Reach the team at contact@allinonemerchandise.com or 813-421-4159.
