For businesses · 7 min read · Updated October 2026

Your Lunar Dashboard: How Mileage and Impressions Actually Work

Active cars, approved mileage, estimated impressions — what each number means, where it comes from, and why 'approved' is the word doing the work.

Your Lunar dashboard shows three core numbers: active cars, approved mileage, and estimated impressions. Each one is built on verification rather than trust — mileage counts only after a driver's weekly odometer photos are reviewed and approved, impressions are computed from that approved mileage (never from projections), and a car is 'active' only while its install photos confirm your sticker is actually on its doors. This guide walks through where each number comes from, so you can read your dashboard the way we build it: as an honest account of the reach you're paying for.

Active cars: what 'active' actually requires

A car counts as active when three verifications are current: the vehicle's VIN confirms it's a unique, real car; an install photo shows your sticker correctly placed on its doors (re-shot in every weekly check); and the driver's odometer submissions show the car is genuinely being driven. If a driver leaves or is released from their stickers, the car drops out of active status — and here's the part that matters for your invoice: days when no car is carrying your sticker aren't charged. You pay for verified presence, not for a roster.

Approved mileage: the number everything else is built on

Drivers submit odometer photos weekly. Our review compares each reading against the last, flags anything implausible, and only then adds the distance to your campaign's approved mileage. That word — approved — is the difference between Lunar's reporting and a guess. We don't count a driver's self-described commute, and we don't extrapolate from a good week. If a driver skips a submission, those miles simply never enter your numbers. The result is a mileage figure that can be audited: every kilometre on your dashboard traces to a photographed odometer, reviewed by our verification process.

Estimated impressions: the formula, in the open

Impressions are an estimate, and we label them that way deliberately — the same standard billboards and transit ads have always used. The calculation has four parts:

• Approved miles — the verified base, per sticker, per month.
• Impressions per mile — how many people, on average, see a vehicle over a driven mile in an urban area.
• A visibility factor — a door circle is not a full wrap, so we scale the estimate down honestly rather than borrowing wrap-industry numbers.
• A zone multiplier — a mile through a dense commercial strip is seen by more people than a mile on an empty road, so zones weigh differently.

Multiply those together and you get the impressions figure on your dashboard. As a planning benchmark, we use roughly 1,500 impressions per car per month — which is why a 2-car Half Moon plan is quoted at ~3k monthly impressions and a 7-car Full Moon at ~10k. Your actual number moves with real driving: an energetic month beats the benchmark, a quiet one falls short, and the dashboard tells you which happened.

Why you can't see where a driver lives

Your dashboard shows each car's vehicle type, status, and approved mileage — and deliberately nothing else. Drivers are your neighbours, not your employees: their addresses, payment details, and personal information stay private. You get what a media buyer needs (is the car real, is it driving, is the sticker on) without what nobody should have. This boundary is also why drivers trust the program enough to carry local brands well — a point we're equally direct about with them.

Reading your dashboard like an operator

• Watch approved mileage trends, not day-to-day wiggle — weekly approval cycles make short windows lumpy.
• A car showing low mileage is being handled: verification follow-ups and, if needed, re-matching by Lunar's team, and you aren't charged for days when no car is carrying your sticker.
• Compare impressions against your plan's benchmark (~1.5k per car) to see whether your zones and drivers are running ahead or behind.
• Pair reach with attribution where you want harder numbers: a QR code or an offer code of your own on your sticker design turns some of those estimated impressions into countable actions — worth doing if your offer suits it.

Estimates, stated plainly

We won't tell you a sticker was seen exactly 4,217 times — nobody selling physical advertising honestly can. What we can tell you: every impression estimate on your dashboard is built from photographed, reviewed, approved miles driven by verified cars carrying your verified sticker, weighted down for format and honestly for density. That's more verification than most out-of-home media offers, at a price that starts at $500 a month. If you want to see the dashboard against your own zones, that's where to start.