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Glossary

Cost per click (CPC)

Cost per click is the price an advertiser pays each time someone clicks a search ad. You choose the most you are willing to pay for a single click, and the amount you are actually charged is often lower.

Also called CPC, pay per click.

By NightshiftDirect Research. Published . Updated .

How the charge works

With cost-per-click bidding you pay when someone clicks your ad. You set a maximum bid, the highest amount you will pay for a single click, and what Google actually charges is often less (Google Ads Help). Google also calls this pricing pay-per-click, which is where the letters PPC come from (same page).

Your maximum sets the top of what you will normally pay. What any one click actually costs moves from search to search, for the reasons below.

What sets the price

An auction runs for every search to decide which ads appear and in what order (Google Ads Help). Google scores each ad with what it calls Ad Rank, a combination of the bid, the quality of the ad, minimum thresholds, the context of the person's search and the expected effect of extensions and other ad formats (same page).

Since the bid is only one part of that score, the price of a click and the spot your ad lands in can change with every search (same page). It also means the bid is not the only thing you can change. The quality of the ad counts too.

What a click buys

On most search ads, a click on the ad itself opens your website. The visitor may call, fill in a form or leave without doing anything, and the click is charged either way.

It buys nothing in the free results beside the ads. Google says advertising with it changes nothing about how a site shows in its search results, and that it takes no payment to list or rank a site (Google Search Central).

Judging it with your own numbers

A cost per click means little on its own. Set it beside two numbers of your own: how many visits from ads turn into customers, and what a customer is worth to you. Divide what you paid for the clicks by the customers they brought, and you have what each new customer cost. Compare that with what a customer brings in.

Use your own figures throughout: the charges in your ad account, your own count of the calls and forms that came from ads, and your own records of what jobs are worth. Averages from other businesses may show roughly what others pay. They cannot tell you whether a click pays for itself at your prices, on your site.

Local Services Ads are billed another way. They charge for leads instead of clicks (Google Local Services Help), so the same sum starts from what each lead costs.

Where the click lands

We do not manage ads yet; paid search has a waitlist. Whoever runs your ads, a click on most search ads lands on your website, and what the visitor finds there has a lot to do with whether the visit turns into a call. The free scan checks that site, including whether a phone visitor can tap to call and whether there is a form or booking link.

Questions

Why was I charged less than my maximum bid?

Because the maximum is a ceiling, and Google says the amount it actually charges is often lower (Google Ads Help). Each price comes out of an auction that weighs the quality of your ad and the context of the search along with your bid (Google Ads Help). Paying less than your maximum is the system working as Google describes it.

Will paying for clicks lift my site in the free results?

No. Google says its ads do nothing for where your site appears in its search results (Google Search Central). Showing up in the free results takes work on your website and your Business Profile, whether or not you advertise.

Is a lower cost per click always the better deal?

No. A cheap click that never turns into a customer costs you more than a pricier one that often does. Compare what each new customer costs rather than what each click costs, and judge any change to your bids by the calls and forms that follow.

Where this fits in our work

We handle this as part of PPC and Local Services Ads: Google Ads and Local Services Ads management with hard budget caps. Not open yet: join the waitlist.

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Sources