CPC
DefinitionCPC (cost per click) is the average price of one click on your ad. You get it by dividing the campaign’s cost by the number of clicks.
How it works
In search, the price of a click is set by an auction. Google Ads and Microsoft Ads look at both your bid and the quality of your ad, so a more relevant ad can pay less for a higher position. In Meta Ads, you usually pay for impressions, and CPC simply reflects how many people click. The same three letters describe a slightly different mechanism on each platform.
- CPC
- €2
- ×Clicks
- 1,500
- =Budget
- €3,000
- ×Conversion rate 3%
- 45 enquiries
- =Cost per enquiry
- approx. €67
Figures are illustrative.
What it means for you
CPC is the first building block of a budget: it decides how many clicks a fixed amount will buy. It says little about whether those clicks pay off, though. A €4 click where one visitor in ten sends an enquiry gives you an enquiry for €40. A €1 click with a 1% conversion rate gives you an enquiry for €100.
From our accounts
In accounts we take over, we often see CPC pushed down at any cost, with budget moved to the cheapest clicks on the display network or to broad keywords. CPC falls, and traffic quality falls with it. That’s why we always read CPC alongside cost per conversion.
In Google Ads campaigns, we read CPC alongside cost per conversion and set bids for the clicks that turn into customers.
Google Ads