CPC
Aussi : CPC, Cost Per Click, Pay Per Click price, Coût Par Clic
Cost Per Click (CPC) is the average amount you pay each time someone clicks your ad. It is a core pricing metric for paid search and social advertising.
What It Is
Cost Per Click (CPC) is the average price you pay each time a user clicks one of your ads. It is the dominant pricing model in paid search (Google Ads, Microsoft Ads) and a common option across social and display platforms. You are charged only when a click happens, not when the ad is merely shown.
The formula is simple:
- CPC = Total Ad Spend / Total Clicks
CPC differs from related pricing models:
- CPM (cost per thousand impressions): you pay for visibility, not clicks.
- CPA (cost per acquisition): you pay per conversion, not per click.
Why it matters
CPC sits at the entry point of the acquisition funnel, so it directly shapes how far your budget stretches.
- Budget efficiency: a lower CPC brings more traffic for the same spend.
- Competitive signal: CPC reflects auction pressure. Rising CPC in a keyword or audience often means more competitors are bidding.
- Quality feedback: on most platforms, higher ad relevance and quality scores lower your effective CPC, rewarding better creative and targeting.
CPC alone does not measure profitability. A cheap click that never converts is worse than an expensive click that does. It must be read alongside conversion rate and downstream value.
How it is used in practice
- Bidding: set manual CPC bids (a cap per click) or let automated bidding optimize toward a target.
- Channel comparison: benchmark CPC across search, social, and display to reallocate budget.
- Diagnostics: a sudden CPC spike can flag increased competition, a broken landing page score, or seasonal demand.
- Chaining metrics: combine CPC with conversion rate and average order value to derive true cost per customer and return on ad spend.
Worked Example
A campaign spends 1,000 EUR and receives 500 clicks.
- CPC = 1,000 / 500 = 2 EUR per click
Now add downstream data. If 5% of those clicks convert:
- Conversions = 500 x 0.05 = 25 sales
- Cost per acquisition = 1,000 / 25 = 40 EUR
If each sale is worth 120 EUR, the campaign returns 3 EUR for every 1 EUR spent. The 2 EUR CPC is acceptable because the funnel converts profitably. Halve the conversion rate to 2.5%, and cost per acquisition doubles to 80 EUR, changing the verdict entirely.
Takeaway: CPC is the price of attention. Its value depends on what that attention converts into.