In 2008, very few large media companies witnessed healthy growth – but Google was one of them. Its Adwords system has exposed a global audience of people expressing a specific interest to marketers who can reach them with tailored messages in real time. Its bidding system means that campaigns can be adjusted to focus on traffic, CPC or CPA metrics in real time.
Cost Per Click or CPC Advertising (also known as Pay Per Click or PPC Advertising) has become the largest part of the online advertising industry, driven primarily by the global self-serve nature of Adwords.
Google AdWords lets advertisers use a Campaign/ Adgroup structure for CPC advertising
There are two primary layers to an Google AdWords account: campaign, and adgroup, each with its own components:
Metrics: Cost Per Click (CPC)
The Question:
How much does it cost to get a visitor to my site?
Approach:
The total media spend divided by the number of clicks received
Commentary:
Some media owners (such as Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing) charge advertisers by click. For others who charge by CPM or by fixed cost, we say effective CPC or eCPC for this value.
The Formula:
CPC or eCPC ($) = Total Media Spend ($) / Number of Clicks