The first page of Google captures 71% of search traffic clicks.

This statistic shows the value of AdWords and how specific metrics influence traffic and marketing.

As a business, this is a relatively cheap investment.

But if you don’t know much about pay-per-click (PPC) or AdWords, it can be difficult to assess the difference between PPC or cost-per-click (CPC). What is the difference, and does either one matter more in your business?

The question ultimately comes down to PPC vs. CPC.

What metric will you trust more when it comes to assessing your success? How do you know if you need to make a marketing change? What metric helps you identify weak points in your marketing strategy and in your business?

Having an understanding of each metric can help you figure out the value and how to properly assess what your marketing plan should be moving forward. It can help you identify your core audience and if you should retarget your core demographic.

Here’s everything you need to know about PPC and CPC for businesses large and small, plus why each is incredibly important to understand.

What Is PPC, and Why Should I Care About It?

PPC is a form of search engine marketing.

In essence, you are paying Google or Facebook to display your ads on their search engine. You are paying whenever someone clicks on an ad.

If you have a business website and a blog, having a high number of keywords can help get your website higher ranked in Google or other search engine inquiries.

Obviously, as a business, you don’t want your ad getting ignored and scrolled past when someone searches for something relevant to your product. You can prevent this with a number of strategies.

These strategies can help your business stay competitive against other similar businesses when your ideal customer is searching for a product that you sell.

PPC Is About Strategizing Your Paid Search Marketing Campaigns

One of the strategies of pay-per-click is that you can create short and concise headlines when people see your ad after they have searched for something.

This is why it’s important to have only 25 characters in your headline, 35 characters in your display URL, and 35 for your ad copy. Creating conciseness in your advertisements allows the customer to clearly understand what you are selling.

It’s also important that you have a clear PPC goal that matches what your business is trying to accomplish.

With PPC you can do search ads, display ads, and even remarket to your ideal customers. Ultimately, you have to decide what’s going to bring in the most clicks at the lowest cost.

You can read more here about how to figure out your PPC ROI.

What Is CPC, and Why Should I Care About It?

CPC is the amount of money you are willing to spend on every click.

In other words, it gives you an idea if a marketing campaign, like PPC, is effective.

You can see if your AdWords is performing well and what it is costing you. You can also see the quality of your AdWords and how they performing compared to your competitor’s site.

This is also why you need to care about industry standards when it comes to the average cost per click in any industry. If you are paying more cost per click in your industry compared to others, it could mean that your campaigns are not as effective compared to your competitors.

CPC Allows You to Assess Your Marketing Budget

Another reason why you should care about CPC is that you don’t want to be an exorbitant amount toward a particular PPC campaign if you know it’s not working.

CPC gives you insight into how much you are spending and if it is worth it.

You want to assess your return on investment and see if you are making a profit. One tool you can use to assess if you are making a profit is by dividing your competitor ad rank by your quality score. This will give you your actual CPC score and help you figure out if you paying more than you need to.

After you figure out your CPC, you can figure out how to improve your PPC campaigns. For instance, you can raise the quality of your ads.

In addition, you can also refine who your audience is and who you are targeting in your advertisements. In a similar way, you can also retarget specific audiences if you think they are more inclined to click on the advertisements than they were before.

In the end, CPC is so important because it allows you to assess your marketing budget.

PPC vs. CPC: Why Does It Matter?

Does it matter what PPC vs. CPC is?

Of course, it does, because you don’t want to spend an exorbitant amount on search ads if you don’t have the budget. Depending on your business’s financials, you may be better off choosing one route over another.

What it really comes down to is how well you know your audience and how much you are willing to spend on ads. If you know where your ideal customer hangs out and your advertisement is very targeted, then you can figure out if PPC with a specific search engine may be working at a specific cost (CPC).

To find more information on PPC and CPC and which metric is better for your business, contact us.