cost per click

Definition

The amount you pay each time someone clicks your ad, turning every click into a tiny financial transaction and every misclick into a personal tragedy. It's performance-based pricing that makes you pray for high intent and curse fat-fingered mobile users.

Example Usage

Our cost per click hit $12 for competitive keywords, making each visitor more expensive than our actual product margins can support.

Origin

Popularized by Google AdWords (now Google Ads) in the early 2000s as an alternative to CPM pricing

Fun Fact

The most expensive Google Ads keywords can cost over $50 per click, with 'insurance' and 'lawyer' niches leading the bankruptcy parade.

Source: Pay-per-click advertising model

Related Terms

Advanced

ad exchange

A digital marketplace where publishers and advertisers buy and sell ad inventory in real-time through automated auctions. Imagine the New York Stock Exchange, but instead of trading equity in companies, you're trading the privilege of annoying someone with banner ads.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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frequency cap

The limit on how many times an individual user will see the same ad within a given time period. Preventing your target audience from developing homicidal thoughts about your brand.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

takeover

A high-impact ad buy where a brand dominates all advertising placements on a website, app, or platform for a set period. The digital equivalent of a hostile acquisition, but temporary.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

top of mind awareness

The first brand that comes to mind when a consumer thinks of a particular product category. It's the ultimate marketing achievement: occupying mental real estate rent-free.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

account-based marketing

A targeted B2B strategy that treats individual high-value accounts as markets of one, essentially putting all your eggs in a few carefully selected baskets. It's the sniper rifle approach versus the shotgun spray of traditional marketing.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

marketing automation

Software that automates repetitive marketing tasks like email campaigns, social posting, and lead nurturing, freeing marketers to focus on strategy—or more realistically, to set up even more automated campaigns. The robot uprising, but for email.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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