Facebook - cost per click (CPC) vs cost per thousand impressions (CPM)- who wins?

There are a lot of people newly entering the fray to sell advertising space on Facebook and as social media specialists assisting many South African and global companies to enter the social media space, we'd like to tell you what works best in this space.

Facebook ads can be targeted to users based on various criteria; amongst others; age demographic; gender; key words and networks. Facebook operates using the “Search” model of selling advertising space, which relies on the bidding system. Therefore the greater the value you attribute to your ad the better your chances of out bidding another ad vying for the same placement.

The Search model is part and parcel of Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions (CPM) and/or Cost-Per-Click (CPC).

Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions (CPM)

CPM pricing is defined as a cost attributed to every 1000 impressions your ad will have on a website. The CPM model is used by most content web portals, whereby you buy X number of impressions for X Rand over X period of time and you do not have to bid for preferential placement thereby guaranteeing the exact number of impressions over the period (That is of course assuming that the web portal has enough impressions and unique visitors to serve those impressions too.)

The Search CPM model is similar but different! This model was actively promoted by the big portals such as Yahoo and AOL. It was a great guaranteed revenue generator for them that had the added bonus of being largely risk free (for them). That is, the client did all the creative work and made the payments while the only thing the web portals had to do was display the ad as often as they could until the advertiser's budget was exhausted. No guarantees are made in respect of the number of impressions served as it is the value you attribute to your ad as well as the popularity thereof that will determine this and this is at the discretion of the web portal.

It's this one-sided nature of both the Search CPM and content web portals CPM models that has pushed clients (marketing and advertising departments) to seek an alternative that can offer them some sort of guarantee of performance and a better return on investment (ROI).

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

CPC sometimes called Pay-Per-Click (PPC) involves risk from the media owner's side in that they are only paid for every click on the ad. This forces them to ensure that the ad is relevant to what is being offered so that it has a good chance of turning into an action (click). At the same time, the client takes on the responsibility of displaying the ad in appropriate places and multiple times so that it will receive clicks. No clicks, no revenue. It's a very simple formula for both sides.

Search CPC is the same thing, however, you will have to bid to attribute a value to your click which would otherwise be an agreed fee with a content web portal. In this case the media owner needs to also take into account the quality of such placements ensuring that ads are actually relevant and have a high chance of a click.

This sharing of risk and the simplicity in measuring performance is why Search CPC and CPC have become so popular. It has been so wildly successful that Google (using Search CPC) generates most of its billions in revenue by playing the middleman between advertisers and media owners. In the case of the ads on the search engine results, Google actually is the publisher. An entire industry has sprung up around this model where big name companies' pay search engine marketers to handle their advertising campaigns. These CPC campaigns are so successful that there has been a measurable shift in advertising spend with more and more going toward the online world.

It is a well known fact that online ads do not get immediate responses the first time a user sees it much like one does not react to a TV advert immediately. Users have to see an advert multiple times in order to get them to action (click) the ad. A Search CPM model used to create multiple impressions would require very deep pockets to pay for a significant number of impressions to justify a reasonable ROI. 100% of the risk would be with you the advertiser. However, on a CPC basis, you only pay for the click, so you are guaranteed the multiple impressions and on Facebook this amounts to millions of impressions!

By way of example -

Search CPM and CPM is tantamount to saying to the web portal - “here is R5000, spend it wisely!” Search CPC and CPC, on the other hand, is tantamount to saying to the web portal - “here is R5000, if you want it, go work for it!”

How revenues effect business models and offerings?

The CPM (not Search CPM) model is the only model most content web portals offer as it would not be financially viable for them to offer CPC. The simple reason for this is due to the fact that these small web portals don't have the critical mass traffic required for them to rely on CPC alone from a revenue perspective. At a few cents; Rands or Dollars per click, no small web portal would make money.

Facebook on the other hand, offers a Search CPM model as this is a good business offering from their revenue perspective, however with over 200 million users around the world growing at a rate of five million people per week - they do not need to rely on the Search CPM model for revenues, and therefore offer the Search CPC model too as this is more attractive to the client.

As Facebook has critical mass traffic they are able to serve as many ads as possible, to your desired target audience, in order to convert the clicks into revenue. Utilising the Search CPC model on Facebook ensures millions of impressions in a short space of time which guarantees ROI and ensures that they work for their money!

What next?

As clients get more familiar with what works online and what does not and with ever increasing options for placement, a few more models have come to the fore with exciting prospects for marketers:

1. Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA): Affiliate marketing has expanded and today's technology is pushing the length that media owners are willing to go to prove that their offering actually works. In this case the advertiser calculates what the cost of acquisition is (the cost of obtaining a new lead or converting that lead into a sale). They can then understand what they should be willing to pay for a lead. It should be stressed though that CPA although fairly new to some, should currently form part of any online campaign's metric in order to quantify ROI.


2. Cost-Per-Call (CPT): With technologies such as Skype, a click can effectively mean a call from the prospects computer directly to the clients sales call centre. Click fraud now becomes a thing of the past, and clients are only paying for genuine sales leads.


3. Stay tuned to Popimedia who has launched South Africa's first homegrown CPC model in the form of FrogsLuck.com.