{"id":19821,"date":"2020-05-22T15:59:18","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T15:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/directiveconsulting.com\/uk\/?post_type=institute&p=19821"},"modified":"2026-05-01T17:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:57:07","slug":"cpc-vs-cpa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/directiveconsulting.com\/uk\/blog\/cpc-vs-cpa\/","title":{"rendered":"CPC vs. CPA: What’s the Main Difference?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you know the difference between CPC vs. CPA in pay-per-click advertising?<\/p>\n

These are two common metrics that digital marketers use to measure or describe the performance of their pay-per-click (PPC) advertising<\/a> campaigns. Yet despite that, we often see terms like CPC and CPA getting misused or mixed up with other advertising metrics.<\/p>\n

If you just received your first\u00a0introduction to PPC<\/a>, it’s understandable that you might be confused – but seasoned digital marketers should be well versed in the differences between CPC vs. CPA, why they’re important and how to optimize each performance metric.<\/p>\n

To help you differentiate between these and other advertising metrics, we’ve created this short guide that explains the difference between CPC vs. CPA in digital marketing. We’ll also cover the most basic marketing metrics<\/a> that anyone doing PPC should know about and explain how to optimize both CPC and CPA to improve your advertising performance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Measuring PPC Campaign Success with CPC vs. CPA or CPM<\/h2>\n

Before we make a distinction between CPC and CPA, let’s start by grounding ourselves with some basic facts about PPC advertising and the metrics used to measure PPC advertising performance.<\/p>\n

When you manage a PPC advertising campaign, you’re essentially creating a marketing funnel with two or three different touchpoints. If you were to map out the ideal customer journey, it might look something like this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A user types a search query into Google using a keyword that you’ve targeted<\/a> in your advertising campaign<\/li>\n
  2. Google decides that your ad is relevant to the user, so the user sees your ad displayed at the top of their Google search results<\/li>\n
  3. The user likes your ad because it offers something that satisfies their search intention (solves their problem, gives them what they want, etc.)<\/li>\n
  4. The user clicks on your ad, which brings them to your landing page with more information about your offer.<\/li>\n
  5. The user chooses to accept your offer by taking the desired actions that satisfy your campaign objective<\/a> (purchasing a product, submitting their email address, or registering for a webinar, for example)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    A simplified version might be condensed to:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. User searches on Google<\/li>\n
    2. User sees ad<\/li>\n
    3. User clicks ad<\/li>\n
    4. User accepts the offer (converts) on the landing page<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      This brings us to some of the first metrics we can use to measure the customer journey for our PPC campaign<\/a>:<\/p>\n