Why eCPC is King

Of all the stats you can gather in your CPA campaigns, eCPC is the king. Sure conversion rates, payouts amounts, CPCs, clicks, bounce rates, etc… are all important, but everything you really need is built right into the eCPC. By knowing the eCPC (estimated cost per click) and the offer amount, you can back calculate conversion rates, number of leads, click totals, and generally the overall health of your campaign. You should be able to get to a point where simply looking at your eCPC instantly tells you if it was a good day or bad day.

It’s also an excellent way to find good offers to test. When in comes right down to it, the payout of the offer, and the conversion rate doesn’t really matter. The eCPC tells you immediately if you can have a good shot at a profitable offer. Actually it’s the spread between what your average CPC you think you can get from your PPC campaign, and the eCPC that you want to look for. The greater the spread, the more profitable the offer.

For example:

Say my account manager tells me an offer is running a network wide eCPC on search of .72 cents. I happen to know that for those keywords I can buy traffic at .41 cents. That’s a decent spread and something definitely worth testing. That means for every click I send to the offer, I’m making.31 cents. If another offer has an eCPC of $1.43, but I know I would have to pay $1.40 per click to send traffic, I would pass with only a .3 cent spread. People get hung up on high payouts, but it’s the spread that really makes you profitable, especially if it’s a high volume search niche.

Keep in mind eCPCs are different for everyone and averages should only be a rough guideline to help you decide what to test. You never know what your own eCPC will be until you gather your own test data. Also eCPC can vary greatly among PPC networks. MSN traffic may have an eCPC of 1.21, where Adwords traffic is .80 cents. It’s important to find your own eCPC for each network and each offer.

(my apologies for the large number of acronyms in this post)

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8 Comments »

Comment by Tob

2007-09-10 21:58:36

I agree 100%, my AM always emphasizes conv. rate, but ecpc is way easier for me to quickly analyse.

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Comment by David

2007-09-11 02:44:40

Chad, do you calculate your EPC by clicks from PPC engine or from your landing page?
Also - sometime could you do a post about how specifically you break up your keywords into ad groups? That would rock
David

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Comment by Chad

2007-09-11 03:08:05

David, I calculate from the PPC engine. That way it takes into account clicks that don’t make it to the landing page, but you were still charged for.

I am planning a post about how to break up keywords, thanks for the reminder!

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Comment by David

2007-09-11 03:13:26

Sorry I forgot to ask something else..
How do you know how much you can buy keyword traffic for? Is it a matter of starting a campaign and seeing or is there a tool you use?

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Comment by Sucker

2007-09-14 00:56:41

Sounds basic but oh so important!

I’ll be waiting for the ad group post too

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Pingback by Industry tips and tricks weekly

2007-09-15 09:42:29

[…] Why eCPC is King […]

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Pingback by Bare Affiliate » Blog Archive » The First PPC Campaign

2008-04-10 03:39:27

[…] she said the conversions are very high, and it’s exclusive to Advaliant. After just reading Chad’s post from CDF Networks about eCPC though, it makes me want to ask about that […]

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Comment by Sam Yu

2008-10-17 18:39:35

Chad,

Without having experience in a new niche, how would you be able to estimate your own ecpc without having any relevant data? In your example are you referring to a new potential offer in an experienced niche? Thanks.

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