Google Ads Glossary

What is cost per click?

Cost per click, usually written CPC, is the number most people reach for first when they look at a Google Ads report. It is also the number least likely to tell them whether the campaign is working.

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Australian tradesperson reviewing advertising costs on a tablet at a work bench

The short answer

Cost per click, or CPC, is what you pay each time someone clicks your Google ad. You are charged for the click, never for the ad being shown. The amount is set by an auction that weighs your bid against how relevant your ad and landing page are to the search.

What it is

Cost per click is what you pay when someone clicks your ad. You are not charged for the ad being shown, only for the click, which is why impressions cost nothing and mean nothing.

What you pay is not what you bid. Your bid is a ceiling; the actual price is set in an auction that runs every time someone searches, and it takes account of how relevant your ad and landing page are as well as what you were willing to pay.

Why it is important

CPC is the price of the raw material, and it is the one lever that quietly changes everything downstream. Improve the relevance of the ad and the page it lands on and the same position can cost less, which means the same budget buys more chances at a job.

It is also the number that makes comparisons meaningless. An emergency search in a capital city and a planned-work search in a regional town are different auctions with different competitors, so a CPC figure quoted without the trade, the city and the search behind it is not information.

How the Google Ads auction turns a bid into the actual cost per click — Your bid is a ceiling. Relevance decides how much of it you actually pay.

What it means for tradies

A low cost per click is not a win on its own. Cheap clicks are easy to buy by loosening your keywords, and the cheapest traffic in most trades is the traffic least likely to book anything: people researching, comparing, or looking for a job rather than a tradesperson.

The number to hold a campaign to is cost per lead, and eventually cost per booked job. A campaign paying more per click and less per booked job is the better campaign, and any report that leads with CPC while staying quiet about leads has chosen what to lead with.

Cost per click, in one line

What you pay when someone clicks your ad, abbreviated CPC.

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Common questions

Cost per click: the questions that follow

There is no single figure worth quoting. CPC moves with the trade, the city, the urgency of the search and who else is bidding that week, so a national average is not information you can act on.

The useful number is what your own campaign paid, per campaign, alongside what a lead cost.

Usually more competition in the same auction, or a change in what your keywords are matching. Both show up in the search terms report before they show up anywhere else.

A drop in ad or landing page relevance does it too, because relevance is part of what decides the price you pay for a position.

Yes, and not mainly by bidding less. The lever is relevance: an ad that repeats the search and a landing page built for that one job can hold the same position for less.

Tightening match types and adding negatives also lowers it, because you stop paying for the loose, cheap, low-intent clicks.

Not on its own. Cheap clicks are easy to buy by loosening your keywords, and in most trades the cheapest traffic is the least likely to book anything.

Judge the campaign on cost per lead. A higher CPC that produces booked work beats a low one that produces browsing.

Keep reading

Other terms worth knowing

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