There are many factors that will affect how successful a pay per click advertising campaign will be. For example, there is the landing page, the
advert and the keywords you select to target your campaign to reach a specific audience. Another element is the CPC or Cost Per Click you use to bid for the keywords you are targeting. For some advertisers, they feel a high CPC is the way to go as it has ‘X’ number of benefits. Whereas, on the other hand, other advertisers feel it is better to go for a low CPC to gain ‘Y’ number of benefits. In this article, I will look into the argument of using a high CPC compared to a low CPC.
Below are the main benefits and drawbacks associated with adopting a high CPC for keywords and a low CPC too with a conclusion at the end.
High CPC
- + Gain number one spot which tends to perform the best.
- + Can make results more predictable as location is always going to be top spot.
- + As the CPC increases, there tends to be a correlation that the quality of visitor heading to your landing page increases (resulting in a better conversion rate for your campaign).
- – A high CPC will eat into any PPC campaign’s budget.
- – If the traffic does not convert (i.e. it was click fraud or a wasted click), then your campaign may start to run very inefficiently.
- – ‘Putting all your eggs in one basket’ by targeting the best traffic at the highest cost.
Low CPC
- + Budget can stretch further so it is a less risky solution to PPC.
- + Gain much more traffic based on the same budget as compared to a high CPC.
- + Works extremely well with niche keywords that tend to have low competition.
- – Quality of traffic will not be as good resulting in a lower conversion rate.
- – Overall, price per conversion may be less than the high CPC strategy.
- – Location of advert unpredictable.
Ultimately, the best campaigns are the ones that incorporate both high and low CPCs for keywords. As mentioned, niche keywords will always have low CPCs as there is no competition for them (so you do not need to bid high for them). Whereas, if there is a keyword that you know your campaign must target even if the CPC is high, then you should do so taking into consideration your overall campaign.
If you are still unsure what strategy to use, always think about which strategy, for your campaign, will produce the lowest price per conversions. This is because, at the end of the day, the price per conversion is the main statistic that determines how successful a PPC campaign is.
