Average cost per click
also called CPCAvg CPC
Definition
What one paid click cost on average, total ad cost divided by paid clicks.
Scope, grain and dimensions
- Grain
- One number per date range, or one row per group_by value.
- Dimensions
- keyword · campaign_keyword · page · adgroup_name · campaign_name · campaign_type · intent · category · country · device
- Required filters
- date_range
- Aggregation
- A ratio of two sums, it is recomputed at whatever grain is queried, never averaged across rows of a breakdown.
- Metric type
- monetary · account currency per click
Data sources
Where you'll see this
Named reports that normally include this metric.
Paid and organic overlap reportPaid search performance report
Skills and analyses that use it
Skills carry the judgment; the analysis verbs do the reading.
Analysis verbs
paid_search_overview
Method rungs and levers
A rung tells you what a movement here can and cannot explain, read the rungs below it first.
levers L8 Paid/organic interplay
Ask Quattr
- "What are our CPC trends by keyword?" Simulate this →
- "Which campaigns have the most expensive clicks?" Simulate this →
Caveats, freshness and failure modes
Averaging CPC across a breakdown is not the account CPC: the ratio must be recomputed from the summed cost and summed clicks.
Whole-domain only; a segment argument is ignored.
The denominator is the paid click count, which the formatter mistypes as money, see the paid clicks entry.
- Freshness
- ~1 day behind, Ads reporting settles overnight; same-day spend is provisional.
Common failure modes
- Taking a mean of per-campaign CPCs and calling it the account CPC.
- Comparing CPC between two periods without checking whether the campaign mix changed.
Not the same as
The confusions that cause the most wrong decisions.
Average cost per click Cost per conversion Compare definitions →
CPC prices a click; cost per conversion prices an outcome. A campaign can have a cheap CPC and an expensive cost per conversion at the same time.
Average cost per click Paid clicks Compare definitions →
One is a count of clicks, the other is the price of a click. Their underlying field names look alike, which is why the two are kept as separate entries.
Average cost per click Average cost per thousand impressions Compare definitions →
CPM prices exposure and CPC prices a click. They are not interchangeable, and neither may stand in for the missing one.
Watch this metric read in a real run
All runs →
Related metrics and workflows
Verification
A definition is the smallest part of this.
The measurement matters because something acts on it. Here is the rest of the showcase, in the order most people find useful.