The Cost Per Click Conundrum

Surely a lower CPC is best?

At the heart of any Pay Per Click (PPC)campaign are metrics that determine the results achieved from your campaign. Whilst PPC campaigns can vary, they all have two objectives they must fulfil, one after the other.

Objective 1: Be Viewed. The ads must grab the attention of the audience it’s been shown to.

Objective 2: Be Clicked. The ads must then entice the audience to take the action of clicking, so that they might ‘learn more’ or ‘buy.

As clicks are so essential, so too is the metric of Cost Per Click (CPC).

As with any area of marketing, you want to optimise your PPC campaigns to maximise your results whilst minimising your cost.

It’s therefore common for businesses to prioritise the lowest possible CPC. This is fine, but businesses must go further and measure the cost per conversion, where possible.

This will allow the business to better determine the value of the clicks they’re achieving. The value and quality in the clicks can vary massively. Let’s look at two examples:

Example one:

PPC campaign spend: $100

Clicks: 200

Cost Per Click: $0.50

Conversions: 1

Conversion rate: 0.5%

Example two:

PPC campaign spend: $100