Ever wondered what in the world the difference between the acronyms PPC and CPC are? Well, to set things straight let’s start off with what the letters stand for and get into meaning next.

PPC stands for Pay Per Click and CPC stands for Cost Per Click. Both terms are important Google search marketing jargon, so it’s good to know when one is more appropriate than the other. In this case, PPC would mean a search engine pay per click ad system for the user. CPC would means the cost per click that the user bids on a keyword or phrase in the ad system.

For example, say Ryan is launching a Google Search Engine Marketing campaign for the keyword ‘Google SEO‘ in Google Adwords. Google Adwords itself would be the PPC ad system used. Google Adwords enables Ryan to pay per click on keywords. If Ryan bids $.69 on this particular keyword and is awarded an advertisement as a result, his ad will eventually get a click. The CPC, or cost per click, will then be 69 cents…

I hear these two getting confused, mixed-up, and grossly misused on a regular basis. It kind of reminds me of the newbie mixup with the meanings of SEO and SEM…

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