Back to all glossary articles

Cost per click (CPC) / effective cost per click (eCPC)

Cost per click (CPC) is the price an advertiser pays to a publisher for each click on their ad. The CPC is calculated with the following formula:

CPC = total cost of campaign ÷ number of clicks

CPC rates mitigate the risk for advertisers as they only pay when their ad actually gets clicked. The cost depends on either targeting high-demand audiences or popular key phrases on Google.

eCPC means effective cost per click and is used to show what the CPC would have been if the advertiser purchased clicks instead of impressions or conversions.

Read more about CPC on Piwik PRO blog:

  • Privacy by design in practice: How “just enough” data beats “just in case” collection

    While collecting more data “just in case” feels safer, according to Matt Gershoff, it’s also one of the biggest sources of unnecessary compliance risk, analytical noise, and wasted organizational resources in the analytics industry today. His approach of “just enough” data collection is more intentional, more aligned with privacy regulation, and often more analytically effective.

  • 4 ways to make your analytics HIPAA-compliant: Implementation guide

    Healthcare organizations have four main approaches to achieving HIPAA-compliant analytics. Each has different trade-offs in cost, technical complexity, and analytics capabilities. This guide compares all four implementation methods – from using Google Analytics with workarounds to deploying fully HIPAA-compliant analytics platforms – so you can choose the right approach for your organization’s needs and resources.

Other definitions

Recent posts from Piwik PRO blog