What Is CPC Marketing?

CPC or Cost Per Click is a marketing model that charges you only for performance, like when people click your text ads or phone number in the ad results. So, you set a maximum cost per click bid or “max CPC”, which is the highest amount that you’re willing to pay for each click.

 

However, this is for when you’re using manual bidding when you set bids yourself. With automated bidding on the other hand, the system sets bids automatically based on your goals like impressions, clicks and conversions.

 

Google Ads is the leading CPC marketing platform which displays ads on the Google search engine and its partner websites and apps. It’s also known as pay per click (PPC) and is a performance-based platform that gives you a lot of control over your advertising costs and strategy.

 

Here are some key features of CPC marketing in Google Ads that help you run effective campaigns.

 

Campaign Type

 

There are different campaign types that you can run as part of your CPC marketing. In Google you can run pay per click campaigns in Search, Display, Shopping, Video, Local, Smart, Performance Max, Discover and App formats.

 

Each of these campaign types has its purpose and helps you achieve specific goals for your business. For example, Search is the primary CPC campaign type in Google Ads and you use keywords to target people who are searching for your products or services on Google and other partner search engines. So, as people search and click your ads, you’re charged for each click.

 

And for Shopping campaigns, you provide a product feed to Google Merchant Centre and link it to Google Ads. And then you create a Shopping campaign in your Google Ads account so your product listings can appear in the search results above the text ads and on the Shopping tab. Like other campaigns you’re charged every time someone clicks your ads.

 

 

Text Ads

 

Text ads are the primary ad type in Google Ads. There are other ad types like image ads, responsive display ads, dynamic search ads, call only ads and product listing ads. Your text ads are what people see when they search for your products or services on Google and are an important part of CPC marketing.

 

When people search on Google and see your ads, they can click through to your website to find out more. You are only charged when your ads are clicked and not when people search only but do not click.

 

And so, the benefit is that you only pay for traffic that is likely to convert. The budget you set determines how many clicks you get and that affects the number of conversions you get too.

 

Keywords

 

The keywords you select help to attract searches that are relevant for your business. And these searches determine what your cost per click will be and so are an important of CPC marketing.

 

To find the right keywords to bid on, use a keyword research tool like Keyword Planner. This will also help you to see what you’re likely to spend for each click on your ads.

 

 

And start with phrase and exact match type keywords to control the searches that you get to your ads. And this helps you to get a better indication of what your average CPC will be.

 

 

Bid Strategy

 

Your bid strategy is a very important part of your CPC marketing. It’s one of the main factors that determine what your cost per click will be for each visit to your website.

 

 

There are different bidding strategies to pick from including automated and manual options as the screenshot above shows. And the bid strategy to start with depends on your goals. Some help you focus on impressions, some on clicks and some on conversions and conversion value.

 

You can use these at different times. The Maximise Clicks bid strategy for example focuses on getting you as many clicks as possible for your budget. And later you can change to a conversions-focused bid strategy when you have a lot more data.

 

The Manual CPC bid strategy gives you more control over your bids and so can set a maximum amount to pay for each click.

 

 

Conclusion

 

It’s important to know that there are other models besides cost per click marketing including cost per Impression, cost per conversion, cost per view and cost per call. For example, cost per call is for call-only campaigns, cost per install is for App campaigns, cost per impressions for Display, and so on.

 

And you will come across these as you setup new campaigns and look to achieve your goals in Google Ads.

 

But cost per click is the primary model and is available on almost all campaign types. So, it’s important to understand how it works and how it can help you setup effective campaigns.

 

Get in Touch

 

As a Google Ads expert, I have many years experience with CPC marketing in Google, setting up and managing campaigns. Please contact me below to discuss your requirements and to find out how I can help you.