Platform · Metrics · CPC
CPC: Cost per click
What you pay for each click. Useful as a traffic cost, dangerous if you treat a cheap click as a cheap customer.
What it is
Cost per click is ad spend divided by clicks. It tells you the price of attention in the auction. It does not tell you if those clicks can buy. Cheap CPC with a dead conversion rate is expensive. Dear CPC with high AOV and conversion rate can be a bargain.
Why it is worth tracking
Teams chase the lowest CPC and fill the funnel with curiosity clicks. Operators read CPC with CTR, conversion rate, and CPA so they know whether to rewrite the ad, change the match type or audience, or leave a “expensive” click alone.
How to read it
A single number is not a brief. These splits are what change the work.
CPC rising, CTR falling
You are losing the auction and the creative. Refresh the ad and check audience overlap before you just raise bids.
CPC low, CPA high
Clicks are cheap because they are the wrong people, or the page fails. Do not celebrate the CPC. Fix conversion.
CPC high, ROAS still holds
The click is expensive and qualified. Protect it. Cutting bids here to “win” CPC will often dump revenue.
What the Operator does
Diagnose, act, then draft. The stats pick the job. Brand voice stays locked.
Diagnose
The Operator splits CPC by campaign type, placement, and market. Search CPC and social CPC are not comparable, and neither is a substitute for CPA.
Act
Shift budget away from cheap-click placements that never convert. Tighten queries and audiences that inflate CPC without improving conversion. Keep high-CPC winners if ROAS is intact.
Draft
For search, draft tighter headlines and sitelinks that match intent. For social, draft hooks that attract buyers, not just clickers, using the ads that already convert downstream.
Example brief
“Google Ads CPC in Hong Kong climbed 35% this month. Brand terms still convert at 8%. Non-brand is cheap CPC but 0.4% CVR. Rewrite non-brand RSAs around invoice automation for SMEs. Keep brand terms as they are.”
Paste a brief like this into a Basis Operator. Connected account context and brand rules apply automatically.
Related metrics
Read it with these, or you will optimize the wrong surface.