One big difference between online ads and that billboard? While the billboard may well convince someone to try a new restaurant, a new brand of soda, or a new legal practice, it’s hard to know for sure what drove the action. On the other hand, marketers can be quite sure how an online ad is performing thanks to one very trackable action: The ad click.
When someone clicks on an online ad, be it at the top of a web search, the bottom of an article, in a social media feed, in a pop-up window, and so forth, advertisers are served specific data about the engagement with the ad, and about what action the engagement — the click, that is — led to later, be it someone signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or quickly bouncing off the page to which they were delivered.
Even a click followed by a bounce can be valuable, as it can help marketers learn why their ads aren’t working. Speaking of value, the cost of a click can vary from pennies to dollars based on ad type and placement, as well as on the goods or services being marketed. I’ll cover all of it in depth here, from costs to best practices, starting with the basics.
What Is an Ad Click?
“An ad click is basically the act of a user interacting with a brand by clicking on any kind of online advertisement,” says Anton Kovalchuk, digital marketer and the founder and CEO of QliqQliq. “Whether it be a display ad, search ad, or social media ad, the click lands the user on a page where the advertiser can interact with the user further.”
In other words, be it a tap on a screen as someone scrolls Instagram or TikTok, or a click on a banner ad as someone reads a new story on a computer, an ad click is a purposeful engagement. It’s the user saying, “Show me more.”
“An ad click, from a marketing perspective, is an important metric,” says Kovalchuk, “as it indicates an active interest from the viewer in the content of the advertisement. One must make a distinction here: An ad click is more than a mere impression of the ad, it is the action the user took because of his or her interest in the ad.”
So, not only does an ad click lead a user one step closer to a marketer’s desired action, be that a sale, a sign up, a donation, or even just a read, the click shows a proof of concept for the ad, both in terms of content and placement.
How Do Ad Clicks Work?
Ad clicks redirect users to the page, site, or app of the marketer’s choice. “In simplest form, an ad click is when a user actively engages with an ad by clicking on it,” says Darian Shimy, founder and CEO of FutureFund. “Usually these ads will take users to a landing page or product offer. It’s normally the first signal of interest and is often used as the starting point for tracking conversions, whether that’s a purchase, sign-up, or lead submission.”
Every time someone clicks (or taps) on one of the ads you’ve placed, you will pay for it. “The cost of an ad click will vary significantly by differing industries and platforms, all of which compete for the ad space,” says Kovalchuk. “Legal services and insurance are two industries in which costs-per-click (CPC) would generally be high because competition for keywords is intense in these categories. Depending on these and related factors, CPC could be anything from a few cents to several dollars.”
Shimy echoes these sentiments, saying that, “Costs-per-click tend to vary by platform and targeting. The range can be quite widespread, from a few cents to several dollars. Of course, it depends on audience competition, and keyword relevance impressions are important as they help build awareness, but in my opinion, clicks are where the sales funnel begins. They help indicate intent and allow businesses to move users into remarketing or sales flow.”
You can set your budget, knowing the maximum amount of money you’ll spend on a given ad before it will be removed and replaced by something else, so you don’t have to worry about runaway online advertising costs.
How Do Ad Clicks Help Your Business?
Ad clicks help businesses in myriad ways, including the most obvious, which is that they can drive sales.
Ad Clicks Can Convert to Sales
More often than not, the goal of an online ad is to lead to a sale. An ad click can directly deposit a potential buyer on a product page, making it easy for them to go ahead with a purchase that will more than offset the cost of the ad, meaning direct profits for the brand.
Ad Clicks Help Marketers Gather Information
Even ad clicks that don’t directly convert to sales can offer plenty of value to an advertiser in the form of data. When marketers can see which ads seem to work best in terms of content and placement, they can get a sense of how people are engaging with their brand.
Ad Clicks Help You Manage Your Budget
Unlike with the cost for impressions, which can only be estimated, cost-per-click (also known as pay-per-click) ads let you know exactly how much money you’re going to spend, so you can allocate your marketing budget with care and intention.
How to Track Ad Clicks
To track online ad clicks, you can utilize various ad platforms like Google Ads, YouTube, and Google Analytics, each of which offer built-in analytics dashboards that monitor click metrics, conversions, and other information. You can also use third-party click trackers and event tracking tools to get more detailed insights into user interactions and campaign effectiveness. Some leading performance marketing platforms offer you first-party data insights based on impressions, clicks and other metrics enabling maximum ad placement and budget optimization.
Realize leverages Taboola's extensive first-party data from powering publisher editorial and ad units, providing unmatched insights and targeting capabilities.
The more closely you track your ad clicks, the more you can learn from their performance and the better you can adjust and optimize the ads, ensuring they will perform well for you.
How Can You Optimize Ad Click Rate?
Even a great online ad can always perform better if you put in the work to optimize it, so let’s talk about best practices.
Run A/B Testing on Online Ads
“Best practices to optimize for ad clicks involve continuous testing and refinement of ad creative executions,” says Kovalchuk. “A/B testing ad copy with different sets of visuals and calls to action (CTAs) will prove to be a source of insights into what resonates best with your audience.” If one ad (or set of ads) is working better than another, use that info and put more spend behind the better performer.
Ensure Landing Pages Align With Ad Content and Appearance
“To reap the maximum potential from ad clicks, optimization of landing pages based on the promise of the corresponding ad is paramount,” Kovalchuk says. “If a user clicks an ad for a product, they expect to arrive on a page that will facilitate understanding more and easily making a purchase. The landing page must be relevant, load fast, and be easy to use. An equally accepted best practice is to align the ad copy with a landing page that shares the same message and offers a seamless user journey all the way through to conversion.”
Target Your Audience Properly
Research your intended audience with care, seeing the kinds of media they consume and researching keywords that will resonate with them, then use these words in your copy. Also, watch out for negative keywords by excluding irrelevant or off-topic keywords that might lead to low-value clicks.
Use Strong Calls to Action
A strong call to action is a great way to create a valuable ad. When a consumer knows exactly what that click is going to lead to, they are more likely to complete the conversion if they make the click. Think “Buy It Here Now” instead of “Start Shopping,” or “Sign Up for Our Newsletter Here,” instead of “Learn More.”
Key Takeaways
Ad clicks are both a potential step toward sales, sign-ups, or other conversions, and a good data collection tool that advertisers can use to see what’s working and what’s not. Most online ads work on a cost-per-click basis, meaning you pay each time someone clicks through your ad and reaches the intended landing spot. Ad clicks can cost as little as a few cents for minimally competitive keywords and product categories, to more than $5 per click for highly competitive fields.
When ads are optimized in terms of keywords, design, copy, and placement, and when they align well with their destinations, they are a great way to drive sales and other conversions that will benefit your business.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How much do ad clicks pay?
At present, the average cost of ad clicks on Google ranges from less than 20 cents to more than $5. On Facebook, CPC costs are around $2 on average. It’s not hard to determine what your ad clicks will cost, but to determine their value, you have to track how often they lead to actual sales, and of course the cost of your products and/or services will be pivotal here.
What’s better, 1,000 impressions or 1,000 clicks?
1,000 clicks are generally better than 1,000 impressions because they represent actual engagement and user interest in your ad or content. Impressions simply indicate how many times something was shown, while clicks signify that someone actively chose to interact with it.
How much is an ad click?
As discussed several times above in greater detail, ad click costs range from pennies to several dollars, usually not exceeding $6 per click. At last check, the average cost of an ad click on Google Ads was $2.32.
