So, the fundamental question. Should advertisers and publishers use CPC advertising?

Advertiser

Yes. It is more expensive than CPM advertising, but typically speaking, the traffic that is sent to your site from CPC advertising is really targeted and it converts a lot more than CPM. CPC advertising is a lot of experimentation and determining exactly how much you should spend per click per campaign. You can set a daily budget and then just sit back and watch as the clicks roll in. It becomes more dangerous, though, because now you have to have in the back of your mind the idea of click fraud. Are all the clicks coming to your site genuine? It becomes a nuisance.

Publisher

Yes, but only sometimes. CPC advertising for a publisher is great, but the thing to remember is you’re dealing with a middle man like Google, so they’re taking a huge chunk. Let’s say, as well, that you have an ad space that you sell for $500. You change it to Google Ads and then sit it there. Now, the space could make nothing. The space could make less than the $500 and the space could make more. The issue is, you’re depending on people clicking on ads to determine how much you make there instead of just getting a lump $500 sum. So, which is better? That’s up to you.

CPC advertising, though, is an incredible move for advertisers and publishers. I often times suggest it for advertisers because I am a proponent of private advertising. However, it can always find its place on a website to try and earn a little extra money to supplement the hosting or whatever. CPC advertising was revolutionary when it came out and it has continued to earn people millions of dollars. Google has earned billions.

CPM advertising is a method that a lot of people think is a bad way to advertise or sell ads because of the small amounts of money that are dealt in, but the truth is, it is one of the best methods in which a website can make money or be found. CPM advertising is, like the name suggests, Cost per M. M is the Roman Numeral for 1000, so CPM stands for Cost Per Thousand. You’re selling impressions. So, whatever the CPM rate becomes is the rate that it costs to buy a thousand impressions on a site. Your ad will be seen that many times and when it does, you owe x amount of dollars.

However, people ask how CPM advertising can work for them. Here is the advertiser and publisher’s side to CPM advertising.

Advertiser

When you’re an advertiser, you’re looking to get traffic as cheap as possible, especially when you’ve first started your site. CPM advertising could be a great way to do it because there are some sites out there that have a relatively low CPM rate and a ton of traffic. The reason it is so good is because you don’t need to worry about paying for clicks or anything. Your ad is going to be seen and that is that. It is up to you to make sure the ad is alluring and pulls people in to see what you have to offer. Now, the thing that can become frustrating is that no one is clicking on the ad which means you wasted your money. Based on the type of ad and where it is placed, often times, CPM advertising can become a favorite for advertisers because of the cheapness of the ad. Should they use it? Sometimes.

Publisher

When you’re a publisher, you want to try and make money on your site. CPM advertising is a good move because here, you are responsible for getting traffic to the site. If you are able to push thousands and thousands of people to your site, the CPM ads on it are going to make money for your wallet. Last I checked, that’s exactly what you want. It is important to try and ensure that ads are being clicked on because if an advertiser gets no clicks, even though they’re only paying for impressions, they won’t do it again. They want to get clicks. They just don’t want to pay for clicks.

CPM advertising is a good move to get inexpensive traffic and to fill ad spaces for periods of time which will bring in money. It is not as profitable or traffic oriented as CPC advertising, but it does make money and it does deliver traffic. It’s definitely worth a shot.