CPC stands for Cost Per Click. It's a metric used in digital advertising to calculate how much you're paying for each click on your ad. The cost is calculated by dividing the total cost of the campaign by the number of clicks received.
With Databox you can track all your metrics from various data sources in one place.
Cost per Click (CPC) represents the amount of money an advertiser pays each time a user clicks on their online advertisement.
It’s commonly used in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising models, where advertisers only pay when someone clicks on their ad, as opposed to paying a fixed amount for displaying the ad.
To better understand the CPC of your campaign and its overall performance, it’s best to analyze CPC in conjunction with other advertising metrics like CPM (Cost per Mille) and CPA (Cost per Action).
CPC is calculated by dividing the total cost of a specific advertising campaign by the number of clicks it receives.
The exact formula goes like this:
CPC = Total Cost / Number of Clicks
For example, if an advertiser spends $100 on a campaign and receives 200 clicks, the CPC would be $0.50 ($100 / 200 clicks). This means that the advertiser is paying an average of $0.50 for each click on their ad.
What could be considered a good CPC for one campaign or business may not be the same for another.
Generally speaking, you’ll want to aim for the lowest possible cost as it leads to a higher return on investment (ROI).
One of the best ways to determine whether your CPC is good is to compare it to relevant industry benchmarks – and that’s exactly what we prepared.
Here are some useful benchmarks we pulled out from our Benchmark Groups product:
If you want to stay on top of future trends and be able to instantly compare your performance to companies just like yours (in any given industry), you can join our Benchmark Groups – it’s free for everyone!
If you’ve already covered all the standard best practices in lowering your CPC (e.g., keyword optimization, writing better copy, targeting the right audience, etc.), then it might be time to take a look at what world-class marketers are doing.
After talking to hundreds of industry experts on the topic and going through their methods, we shortlisted a few of the most useful tips you can try out:
More resources to help you improve:
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Databox is a business analytics software that allows you to track and visualize your most important metrics from any data source in one centralized platform.
To track CPC using Databox, follow these steps:
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Some of the main factors that affect CPC include industry competition, keyword relevance, ad quality, ad position, targeting, Quality Score, ad format, ad extensions, and bidding strategy.
There’s no one right answer to this. In general, if your CPC is so high that you’re not generating a positive ROI on your campaign, you need to find ways to lower it.
On some PPC platforms (e.g., Google Ads), you can define a maximum CPC that you’re willing to pay to avoid overspending.
No, a low click-through rate (CTR) doesn’t directly increase your CPC. CTR measures the percentage of people who click on your ad after seeing it, and it’s used to evaluate the ad’s effectiveness, whereas your CPC is determined through an auction-based system.
The sum of all clickable interactions on your ads, including clicks led to advertiser-specified destinations and non-destination clicks from social actions and interactive experiences during the specified Date Range.
The New Contacts (w/o Offline Source) metric in Hubspot measures the number of new contacts acquired through online sources, such as website visits, social media, or email marketing campaigns, excluding any offline sources such as trade shows or direct mail.
New Visitor Sessions measures the number of unique users who visit your website for the first time within a specified time period.
The Sessions metric in Hubspot measures the number of times a user interacts with a website within a specific period. It includes all page views, clicks, and other actions taken by the user during that time.
Reach refers to the total number of people who view your ad, both organically and through paid promotion. It indicates the potential audience that can be reached through your ad campaign.
The Amount Spent metric in Facebook Ads represents the total cost of all clicks, impressions, and other ad interactions that generated charges for your campaign or ad set.
The Clicks (All) metric on Facebook Ads shows the total number of clicks on an ad, including link clicks, reactions, comments, shares, and more.
CTR, or click-through rate, is the ratio of clicks to impressions of a webpage or ad, expressed as a percentage. It measures the effectiveness of a website or ad in getting clicks from potential users.
The Spend metric refers to the amount of money spent by an advertiser on their campaigns over a specific period of time. It reflects the total cost of running ads, including clicks, impressions, and other costs associated with advertising on Bing.
Engaged Sessions is a Google Analytics 4 metric that measures the number of sessions where users engaged with the website or app. Engagement is defined as the amount of time spent actively interacting with the content, such as scrolling, clicking, or watching videos.
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