Cost per click (CPC) is a paid advertising term where an advertiser pays a cost to a publisher for every click on an ad. CPC is also called pay per click (PPC). CPC is used to determine costs of showing users ads on search engines, Google Display Network for AdWords, social media platforms and other publishers. CPC is a significant factor in choosing bidding strategies and conversion bidding types to maximize clicks relative to budget size and target keywords.
CPC is a factor in ad types including:
- Text ads
- Shopping ads
- Image ads
- Video ads
- Twitter promoted tweets
- Facebook ads
- Instagram ads
- LinkedIn ads
How Do I Calculate Cost Per Click (CPC)?
Cost per click is calculated by dividing the cost of a paid advertising campaign by the number of clicks. If you want to use a popular online advertising tool like Google AdWords and bid on keywords in order to display paid ads, these tools will often show CPC for target keywords.
Cost per click = Advertising cost / number of clicks
What is average cost per click?
Average cost per click is the average an advertiser spends for every ad click.
Average CPC = total cost of clicks / total number of clicks
What is maximum cost per click?
Maximum cost per click is the highest amount you think a click is worth and the highest you want to pay. The maximum CPC set may not be the amount you actually pay for the click. Google recommends setting the maximum CPC to $1 in AdWords if you are unsure of what to choose for the highest amount per click.