CPM vs CPC

**Bookworm-SEO** · 08-28-2006, 04:23 PM

Which monetizes better? I get the impression that if you can manage an ordinary 1% CTR, most niches will pay better with CPC. Any experts got better info?

**imported_Donn** · 09-01-2006, 03:15 PM

Okay, So I am new at this.

CTR would be "click through rate"
PPC is pay per click

What is CPC, CPM, and CPA?

Of course I know that clicks per minute and Certified Public Accountant aren't the answers!

Thanks!

Donn

**gopher292** · 09-02-2006, 07:09 PM

Donn:
CPC - "cost per click", basically a synonym for PPC when talking about ad types.
CPM - "cost per thousand", you get paid for every 1000 times the ad is viewed (usually banners or popups). Don't ask me why it isn't CPT or CPK, I don't know.
CPA - "cost per action", if somebody signs up for an advertiser's newsletter, gets a free trial subscription, or buys something you get paid.

Bookworm:
My figuring:
Site with 1% CTR on 5 cent CPC PPC ads = same revenue as $.50 CPM
Site with 1% CTR on 1 dollar CPC PPC ads = same revenue as $10 CPM
$.50 CPM is still more than I have been able to find for banner ads.
For popups it would be about $1-2 but then popup blockers will cut that down alot. (Unless most visitors stay for a while. Then adversal will get you $1.20 CPM USA traffic on non-first-page views for people with blockers.)
So unless you're CPC or CTR is really low, you'll get more money with CPC than CPM. (That's my analysis.)

**JDDunn9** · 09-02-2006, 08:52 PM

Who gets 5 cent CPC for real traffic? To compete for any real term you'll need to pay at least 15 to 20 cents, more for certain terms. Also you can get higher that 1% click through rate if you know what you're doing. My vote is for CPM. There was another post about this somewhere I posted a full answer.

**gopher292** · 09-02-2006, 10:25 PM

Ok:

$.15 CPC * 1% CTR = same as $1.50 CPM (poorly optimized and bad niche)
$1 CPC * 2.5% CTR = same as $25 CPM (good ad placement, decent niche)

That's more CPM than anybody I know of offers these days unless you have a ton of traffic and none of your users have popup blockers. And you think CPM is better? Why?

**Bookworm-SEO** · 09-04-2006, 12:27 AM

Gopher, you present a good analysis. I agree with your points, and will adjust my reading accordingly. Thanks for the helpful insights bud!

**BamaStangGuy** · 09-04-2006, 12:40 AM

I make so much more with CPC than I could with CPM

**petertdavis** · 09-04-2006, 01:48 AM

Well, in many cases they're not mutually exclusive. You can run your Adsense and CPM banners on the same page in many cases. Even throw in some affiliate ads as well.

**imported_Donn** · 09-04-2006, 11:33 PM

This sounds like y'all are being paid to have someone advertise on your site. I was looking at it more from the advertiser point of view. Y'all sound light years ahead of me on this.

So you charge CPC or CPM or a combination for ad impressions on your sites? Is that what I should be reading here?

Thanks,

Donn

**Ed_bloggo** · 09-05-2006, 01:22 AM

CPc is almost always better

**davejuk** · 09-14-2006, 10:18 AM

I'd say something is quite obviously wrong if you're getting less than 4% CTR with Adwords. Not much of my income is from Adsense but the main site I display the ads on averaged a 9.25% CTR since 1st August.

Originally I got about 5% with what I now know was poor ad placement, then I jigged it around and almost doubled it. A couple of days ago I tweaked some more and yesterday my CTR was 15.58%.

Traffic is important but you need to make the most of the visitor's you already have.

**Chris 96 WS6** · 09-27-2006, 11:01 AM

I have about a .4 CTR with adsense...even the most releant ads can't match my directly-contracted sponsors' banner ads.

So I'm thinking about trying CPM. I have about 80,000 impressions per month on my sponsors' banners, if I could get a similar amount of CPM impression in place of my current adsense, I think I could make more than $1/day off CPM.

Not knowing the typical payout per impression I'm just guessing, however. Its worth a shot IMO.

**Nitin M** · 09-27-2006, 08:27 PM

heh .. i just blogged about this earlier today ... i used to do only cpc .. around 4 months ago i started trying out some cpm based advertising and after a few months of testing/optimizing i'm finding the cpm is working out better.

a big difference is in cpm you want to invoke interest and aren't as worried about conversion from visitors ... you have to measure conversion from ad dollars spent.

in cpc it's all about conversion of visitors because you paid for each visitor.

my ads used for cpm are completely different from my cpc ads because i want all the clicks i can get vs. the cpc only wanting clicks that have a good (i.e. profitable) conversion value.

full blog post if you interested ... http://www.nitin-malhotra.com/index....a-advertising/