CPC is an online advertising model where advertisers pay publishers based on the number of ad clicks.
CPC is the amount you pay for every click on pay-per-click (PPC) ads. This is why CPC is a significant metric to advertisers.
A lower CPC is preferable because it implies that businesses will have to spend less to achieve their goals for marketing. An excessive CPC, however, on the other side, could hinder a campaign’s capacity to earn a fair ROI through result driven marketing.
What is the difference between CPC and PPC?
The cost-per-click (CPC) method can also be called pay-per-click (PPC). CPC as well as PPC advertising are two aspects of the same coin.
In the eyes of an advertiser, PPC represents a paid advertisement method and an advertisement form. On the contrary, CPC is often employed to mean the financial value of metric advertisers and publishers can utilize to assess marketing costs digitally.
Big ad platforms, such as Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and Amazon Ads, widely use the PPC advertising model.
How to Calculate CPC?
CPC Formula
CPC = Cost of advertising/number of clicks
Cost per click (CPC) is a simple maths assignment. However, the reality is that things are more complex regarding digital marketing.
For advertisers, from an advertiser’s perspective, Cost per click (CPC) is calculated by subdividing the Cost of the PPC advertisement by the number of clicks it’s gained.
A few publishers and ad networks use bidding techniques (click bidding) to determine their CPC prices. That means the automated system can evaluate costs in real time according to demand and the offer. The Cost will change following how many advertisers bid on ad spaces from the identical publisher simultaneously.
Some publishers employ an equation. The most popular method to determine CPC is to divide the Cost per click (CPC) by the percentage click-through rate (%CTR). It is simple to understand that the formula follows:
When using an advertising service, the CPC calculated for an advertising campaign isn’t a “stable” metric. It fluctuates over duration and between ads campaigns, campaigns, or even groups of ads.
Which factors determine your CPC?
We’ve previously mentioned that different web admins have various ways of calculating the costs per click (CPC). Most of these calculations occur in an automated manner based on other variables.
Max Bid
The maximum bid is the most expensive price an advertiser will spend for the click of an advertisement. This is the highest expenditure an advertiser would be willing to invest and is crucial in determining the Cost per click (CPC).
Naturally, during auctions, the platform will take into account ads for auctions that provide an actual CPC less than the advertiser’s highest bid.
Qualitative Score
Within Google Ads, the quality score is among the primary characteristics of an advertisement. It is an indicator of the relevancy of ads for the site.
In the sense that Google Ads wants to show advertisements of high quality, the greater the score on quality, the more favourable. Quality scores are computed based on different ad attributes, such as the relevancy of keywords, landing page quality, and click-through rate (CTR).
Ad Rank
The ad rank can be described as a metric on which the advertiser has no influence. This is also a metric used to judge an advertisement’s effectiveness.
The rank of an ad is determined according to the quality of the ad and the amount of the bid, as well as additional external factors, such as user intent or the context of the user’s lookup.
What kind of advertisements are involved in CPC?
Cost-per-click (CPC) is utilized in various marketing strategies. The campaigns could be images, text ads, videos, text ads, and other kinds of advertisements found on social media sites. A few of these types can only be seen on specific networks. Different publishers employ others.
Below are a few types of ads that can be used in the CPC model:
1. Text-based ads
Text ads are made up of only text. The only other form of media is utilised for these advertisements. While they appear simple, they are well-known and influential when they are used in search marketing campaigns.
For instance, Google Display Network (GDN) is one example. Google Display Network (GDN) is the most popular network, with a reach of over 90% of Internet users. Google performs over 100,000 searches per second. Considering these numbers, it’s unsurprising that advertising companies are still trying to be ranked for the most popular keywords in search engines.
2. Shopping Ads
Advertisements for shopping appear on results for searches when the person is looking for an item. This allows consumers to select an advertisement result without going through a lengthy customer journey.
3. Image Ads
Both networks and publishers often use images. They use images to grab the viewers’ focus and attention.
Image advertisements can provide details about businesses, products, or special deals. They could be banner advertisements for display or social media advertisements. Ads that are image-based and use CPC include a hyperlink to the website.
4. Video ads
Video ads are shown before, during, or even after streaming video. Video ads can be found on YouTube and other platforms for sharing videos.
They are becoming more common because they allow users to engage in the ads. Well-crafted video ads can become very distracting. If they are used with CPC, users can click on a hyperlink for a promoted website.
6. Facebook Ads
Facebook produced a revenue from advertising of $114.93 billion in 2021 yet again, proving the success of online social media advertising. With 1.93 billion users daily, Facebook is a popular advertising channel.
Facebook ads are offered in many types (boosted images, posts videos, inspired posts, video ads, image ads, etc.) They are typically used in conjunction with the pay-per-click (PPC) option.
7. Instagram ads
Pay-per-click (PPC) is an excellent option to run Instagram advertisements. Apart from the ability to boost content, Instagram allows the promotion of an account or story. For stories, popular users can add links to lead people to other places through the advertiser’s site.
8. LinkedIn Ads
Similar to Facebook LinkedIn, the reputable social media site LinkedIn provides the possibility to promote various types of advertisements on social media, including paid posts (boosted posts), Text ads, animated ads, video advertisements, etc.
LinkedIn lets its advertisers select a specific goal in each campaign. If they achieve particular objectives, such as getting website traffic, paying for each click (PPC) is possible. They can use either LinkedIn advertisements or text or image advertisements.
LinkedIn lets its advertisers select a specific goal in each campaign. If they achieve particular objectives, such as getting website traffic, paying for each click (PPC) is possible. They can use either LinkedIn advertisements or text or image advertisements.
Final Thoughts!
Various options are available for Cost per Click (CPC) advertisements. The ideal CPC advertiser is, at the very least, one that meets your current requirements.
The CPC model provides many benefits both for advertisers and publishers. For advertisers, it’s an assurance that they pay only per click. Publishers, too, can give a profit-making income model and a stable source of income.
Mahnoor Murtaza is the Head of the Content Writing department at DE Media Solution. She’s been involved in content writing since 2022 and specializes in English literature & linguistics. She has worked with us on several projects to create web content and blogs/articles. A good habit in me that is “Book Reading”
