As an online marketer who owns a blog and also runs paid adverts. It is always important to know what CPM and CPC mean.
It’s an abbreviation that means Cost Per Impression and Cost Per Click.
CPM – Cost Per Impression
CPC – Cost Per Click or Pay Per Click
So, if you are running any paid adverts online or you registered for an ad sense on your blog or YouTube.
You will see them telling you that you will get paid per the number of impressions or clicks that you bring from your website.
But what about if you are running an advert on any platform and you see them display their CPC and CPM with their charges.
Which one should you go for? Because this is something that always bothers every newbie.
Before we go deeper – let us look at what each one of them means and their differences.
What is CPC and What is CPM?
What is CPC?
CPC means Cost Per Click and it is the money that you pay or get paid for whenever you click or someone clicks on an advert directing t your website or inside your website.
This means that when you run an advert and you get charged based on Cost Per Click.
It means that you will get charged anytime someone clicks on your advert and land inside your website or your desired destination.
The cost per click method is what many marketers out there use because they only want to be charged when they get a click.
Although that doesn’t mean that marketers don’t also use the CPM though – but it is based on several reasons.
Like the CPC for example, you cannot want to run an advert and want to make sales from the advert and be running CPM.
That is a wrong approach – because you are running an advert to get customers.
So, you want to get charged anytime a prospect clicks on your advert and get redirected to your website.
That means that you already get a prospect and the website will record that someone already clicks on your advert.
Once they get the record – you will get charged based on the amount you set per click.
So, anytime you want to run an advert on any platform and you see this CPC. Just know that you will be paying per anytime someone clicks on your link.
Also if you are trying to register for an AdSense for your blog or YouTube channel.
Once you see them telling you that you will be paid for every PPC.
It means that you will get paid anytime someone clicks on any advert on your website.
It is also the same as Cost Per Click. But it is called “Cost” because you are paying and it is a cost you will pay for.
While
It is also called Pay Per Click because you will be getting PAID for every person that clicks on the ads that they place on your website.
Since we are done with this, let us look at the aspect called CPM.
What is CPM?
CPM means Cost Per Impression and it is the amount that you pay anytime you get views on your advert.
So, once you run an advert and you see the cost per Impression on the platform you are setting up your advert on…
…you will only be paying per a particular number of views that you get on that advert.
They already have a particular number of views set up for you to pay for.
So, let us say you have 1000 impressions and get 1000 people to view your advert – you might be charged $10 for that.
You will not be paying for clicks here – so, if you run an advert for 1000 people to view your advert and you don’t get any click – you will have to deal with that.
Although, the money you will be paying whenever your run advert for impression purpose is less than clicks.
You might have spent $100 when you run an advert for CPC whereas you will still be spending $50 on CPM.
So, the Cost Per Impression is a very cool method also and effective for every advert that you pay.
Also, if you are to place an AdSense on your Website or YouTube page and see them telling you that you will get paid for CPM.
It means that you will get paid per when you have a particular number of people that view an advert on your Website.
You might be told that when you have 1000 views on a certain advert – you will get paid like $20.
Although, this method might not make you enough money like when you run the Pay Per Click advert on your website.
So, it is very cool that you even run both CPM and CPC advert together on your page.
Let us look at some close cases where CPC is different from CPM.
Differences Between CPC and CPM in Different Cases
- Objective.
- Proof.
- Testing.
#1. Objective:
The sales method of CPC is different from CPM. This means that the reason why you are running each ad is based on separate reasons.
Most big brands are the ones that run CPM ads a lot because they just want to get more awareness.
Their main purpose for running the advert and using the CPM method is to get people to view their advert and get wider rich.
This is something that they can do because they are big brands and they have enough budget that can cater to CPM ads.
But if you are a newbie starting afresh and planning on making sales and charging based on customers.
Then, you will believe me that the CPC is the best bet for anything related to that aspect.
You need to run CPC ads because you will only be charged when those among your audience click on your link.
That means that you are narrowing down your audience and paying for those that are interested.
You are not just running your advert to everybody that will not even be interested in your advert.
Although, the amount you will pay for running CPM ads will be less than CPC. But if you look at the conversion rate…
…you will see that it is better that you have run the CPC ads.
CPM ads are cool if you want to build your Instagram followers or get people to like your Facebook page.
Or you want to grow your Facebook group or maybe you just want to get views on your YouTube videos.
Those are what CPM is especially good for. But CPC is for making sales and paying for a customer that raises their hand to tell you that “They are Interested“.
It is not just for everybody passing and viewing your ads and ignoring and you are still paying.
#2. Proof:
CPC is a payment method that serves as a method of proof for every penny or cent that you spend.
This method of advert is on every platform where you will want to run your adverts.
But think about it, they control this thing and we don’t even know how they are running the advert.
So if you are running a CPM ad – it will be a little bit difficult for you to know if an ad is performing well because it will only be shown on your ad account.
But when it comes to making money through CPM ads and running it on people’s websites.
Most publishers love the CPM ads method because they don’t need to make people click on the ads before they make money.
So, they prefer to allow more CPM adverts on their website. But is it worth it more than the CPC ads?
Maybe Yes or Maybe Not.
It’s just that the pay is different from each other.
While the CPC is a good way to know your work and see enough proof of what you are doing.
When you run an advert and you keep seeing your CPC ads working – you can know how well it is working when people keep clicking and messaging you or landing on your website.
That is how you can know how well your ads are converting and be using it as enough proof to work next time.
CPC is very favorable for both advertisers and publishers.
It is just that publishers like CPM more because they don’t have to get visitors to click before they earn money.
#3. Testing:
When advertisers and product launchers are just releasing a new product and want to test out their landing and sales pages.
The best ad method they use is the CPC method because it helps them to test out the conversion of their product.
You cannot just launch a new digital product and create a compelling sales page for it and use CPM ads.
Your advert will be running to people who are interested in your product and they will click on the advert and will let you know how the product is converting.
But if you run an advert with the CPM ads – your ads will only be getting Impressions and will only be running to those who will view and ignore your advert.
So, it will be difficult for you to know how best your advert is converting.
That is why product launchers make use of CPC to test out their new products and know-how best it is converting…
…before they decide to work more on investing more money in further ads.
Which One Is Best To Use For Advertisers? CPM or CPC?
As an advertiser – it is normal to be confused as to which one you can use to accomplish a certain task.
Several experts have come and go to State the exact best ads bidding method one should make use of.
The truth is that none of them can be considered the best for advertisers because they both serve different purposes.
Using the CPC bidding method is very good if you aim to make sales with your product
I have already talked about this earlier so there is nothing much to talk about.
But imagine if your aim as an advertiser is primarily to get awareness for a certain brand or a certain project.
Using the CPC bidding method will not be a nice idea because you will be paying more than you should have enjoyed.
So, in cases that only need views or followers for a page. You should consider using the CPM bidding method just to reduce the cost of your ads.
What you have to know is that either your advert converts or not – the platform that you are running the paid advert on will charge you.
They don’t care if you get customers because they have programmed their server to charge at a certain time.
That is why as an advertiser – you must study the purpose of your paid advert. If the purpose doesn’t involve urgent result…
…or need the prospects to do something quickly – you can just use the CPM bidding.
But if it needs urgent effort like sales making or collecting data – the CPC is the best.
Which One Is Best To Use For Publishers? CPM or CPC?
As a publisher – anyone among the two bidding methods is very good and perfect for your YouTube channel.
Although, this might depend on the purpose at which your website is functioning and working.
If your website is majorly a website that involves entertainment purposes and other fun stuff.
You might want to consider using a lot of CPC bidding adverts on your page.
The reason is that even if they click on an advert on your page – they still come back to complete their task.
Let us say they came to download music or music video on your website and they click on your CPC AdSense…
…they will come back to finish the music they want to download because it is majorly for their satisfaction.
So, you are complacent enough that you are not going to lose them even if they bounce from your website to another website.
That is why when you enter some movie downloadable websites and song downloading websites…
…you will see a lot of ads that are clickable and once you click on a button.
You will be seeing ads showing on a new tab and you will have to close and go back before you can do what you want to do.
Although that might be frustrating – it is something that works because you will make sure that you finish downloading what you came for.
But if your website is for educational purposes like this website where you give people tricks and tips.
It is better that you allow a lot of the CPM ads because you shouldn’t prioritize people leaving your websites anyhow.
You always want them to engage on your website and stay a long time before leaving your website.
It doesn’t mean that you won’t allow the CPC ads though – but they won’t be too much on your website.
You should prefer to go for adverts that are paying per impression that you give them on your website.
Final Thought On CPM and CPC
If you are still considering what to use between CPC and CPM – I have already distinguished between the two bidding methods for you.
Also, the meaning and differences between the two bidding methods have been mentioned in this guide.
So, just make sure that you follow along and use the biding that suits a certain requirement and the moment you needed it.
Both of them have their separate advantage when needed and not just diverse to a certain aspect.
Advertising platforms that included that in their advert requirement know the reason why they are doing it.
So, you don’t have to panic over anything – just study your requirement and use the necessary ones.
If you have any certain bidding method either CPC or CPM that works best for you in a particular project.
Kindly hit the comment box below and tell us – we will be glad to hear from you.
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