CPC (Cost Per Click)
CPC is an advertising metric that measures the average cost paid by an advertiser each time a user clicks on their ad, used to evaluate and optimize pay-per-click campaigns.
Cost Per Click (CPC) measures how much you pay on average for each click on your advertisement. It's calculated by dividing total ad spend by the number of clicks received. If you spend $500 and get 250 clicks, your CPC is $2.00.
You often pay less than your maximum bid. Average CPCs vary enormously by industry and keyword. Legal keywords can cost $50-$100+ per click due to the high value of a single client.
In practice
- A home services company reduced their Google Ads CPC from $12 to $7 by improving their landing page relevance and Quality Score, getting 70% more clicks for the same budget
- A B2B company discovered their LinkedIn CPC of $8 actually produced lower cost-per-lead than their Google Ads CPC of $3, because LinkedIn clicks converted at 3x the rate
- An e-commerce store uses long-tail keywords ("women's waterproof hiking boots size 9") at $0.50 CPC instead of broad terms ("hiking boots") at $3 CPC, getting more targeted traffic
- A law firm bids aggressively on high-CPC keywords ($75/click) for personal injury terms because a single client case is worth $50,000+, making the CPC highly profitable
Not sure how this applies to you?
A senior engineer walks your site, your search presence and the way enquiries reach you, then writes down the three things worth fixing first. You keep the document either way.