Cost per click (CPC)

Imagine owning a shop where every time a customer just even opened the door, you had to throw them a quarter. That's cost per click (CPC) in digital advertising! You pay every time someone taps on your flashy ad, hoping they hang around and actually buy something—because wallets usually trump clicks when it comes to paying the rent.

Cost per click (CPC) is a digital advertising metric that measures the amount an advertiser pays for each click on their ad. It is a cornerstone of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising models, prevalent in platforms such as Google Ads and social media networks like Facebook and Instagram. CPC is calculated by dividing the total cost of your ad campaign by the number of clicks received, and it directly affects an advertiser's return on investment (ROI). By optimizing CPC through strategies such as keyword bidding and ad relevance, advertisers can efficiently manage their budgets while targeting specific customer segments to increase traffic to their websites or landing pages. This metric is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of ad copy and targeting strategy, making it a pivotal component of performance-oriented digital marketing campaigns.