Facebook advertising costs vary significantly based on many factors, but most advertisers pay between $5 to $15 per click for their Facebook ads. The exact cost per click depends on the ad competition within your target market, your ad creative and targeting, and your landing page’s ability to convert clicks into customers. By optimizing these factors, you can aim to pay towards the lower end of that range while getting better results from your Facebook ads.
What Impacts Your Facebook CPC
There are several key factors that influence how much you end up paying per click (CPC) for Facebook ads:
- Your target audience and location – More popular demographics and locations lead to higher competition and ad costs.
- Ad creative – More compelling and relevant creatives improve clickthrough rate and lower CPC.
- Landing page – Better landing pages equal higher conversions and allow you to profitably pay more per click.
- Bidding strategy – Manual bidding allows more control but takes time to optimize.
- Ad relevance – Ads considered more relevant by Facebook gain more exposure for less.
- Ad competition – CPC tends to increase for high demand audiences and placements.
- Campaign budget – Higher budgets unlock additional relevant audiences and placements.
- Ad objective – Different objectives like landing page views, conversions, and video views impact CPC.
If you optimize all of these elements, you can achieve a lower CPC while getting better results at the same time. But it’s important to note that the cheapest CPC doesn’t always mean the best value, as that also depends on your resulting return on ad spend.
Average Cost per Click Benchmarks
While your specific CPC will vary, it’s helpful to know some general Facebook advertising CPC benchmarks for averages across industries and locations:
- Global average: $1.72 CPC
- United States: $2.80 CPC
- Europe: $1.58 CPC
- Asia: $0.77 CPC
Average CPC tends to be highest in English-speaking countries like the US, UK, and Australia where Facebook usage and competition is high. It’s lower in Asia, South America, and Africa.
Looking at CPC by industry in the United States specifically:
- E-commerce: $1.22 CPC
- Retail: $2.18 CPC
- Travel: $1.71 CPC
- Technology: $3.08 CPC
- Automotive: $2.69 CPC
Technology and automotive ads tend to have higher costs due to high demand and competition. E-commerce also sees significant competition, but lower values per click keep the CPC lower.
CPC Trends Over Time
Facebook advertising costs have steadily increased over time as both the network’s popularity and the number of advertisers has grown. From 2016 to 2021, average CPC rose around 14% each year. But Facebook ad spending has also risen to match, as the platform continues providing strong ROI for many advertisers.
| Year | Average CPC |
|---|---|
| 2016 | $1.22 |
| 2017 | $1.39 |
| 2018 | $1.59 |
| 2019 | $1.82 |
| 2020 | $2.08 |
| 2021 | $2.37 |
This trend is likely to continue as long as Facebook remains heavily used worldwide while offering advanced targeting options. New ad placements in Stories, Reels and the Metaverse may also drive incremental spend.
How to Estimate Your Facebook CPC
While industry averages provide a baseline, you’ll want to calculate your real potential CPC per campaign to forecast your ad spend accurately. Here are some tips on estimating this during campaign planning:
Use Facebook’s Estimates Tool
The easiest way is to use Facebook’s own ad estimate tool. Just enter your targeting parameters and placements, and it will suggest an estimated range for CPC, CPM and overall reach. This at least provides a starting point from their data.
Analyze Similar Campaigns
If you’ve run other Facebook ad campaigns targeting the same audience, look at their CPC performance. Factor in any differences in creative or strategy for the new campaign.
Research Competitor CPC
Use Facebook’s ad library tool to research CPC for competitor ads. You can search by competitor name and country. Get a sense for what CPC benchmarks are in your niche.
Consider Audience Size
Smaller, more targeted audiences tend to have higher CPC. Very large broad audiences have lower CPC but also less relevance. Find the optimal balance for your goals.
Test At Small Scale
Launch a small test campaign first with your planned targeting and creative. Look at the actual CPC, then scale up cautiously with your forecasted budget.
How to Reduce Your Facebook CPC
Once you have a benchmark for potential CPC, your goal should be decreasing that over time through testing and optimization. Here are some proven ways to improve results and lower your cost per click:
Improve Ad Creative
Hone your ad creative through A/B testing various elements like images, copy, captions, and calls-to-action. Look for the versions that get more clicks at a lower CPC.
Target Interests And Behaviors
Focus your ads on specific interests and online/offline behaviors to increase relevance over just demographics.
Tweak Placements
Try different placements beyond just the News Feed like Stories, Instagram Stories, and Facebook Marketplace.
Adjust Your Bid Strategy
Switching to manual bidding can help you find an optimal CPC level, though this takes more effort to manage.
Improve Landing Pages
Better landing pages increase your conversion rates, meaning you can get more results at the same or lower CPC.
Add Negative Keywords
Exclude irrelevant keyword searches that aren’t driving conversions by adding negative keywords.
Pause Poorly Performing Ads
Stop spending on any ads that have a CPC much higher than your target. Let Facebook’s algorithm re-optimize.
Create Separate Ad Sets
Split up your audience into tightly themed ad sets like interests and recent behaviors to improve relevance.
Ask About Discounts
Advertisers spending over $40,000 per month in some countries can request 10% discounts on CPC directly from Facebook through their account rep.
By constantly monitoring, testing, and optimizing your ads, you can keep Facebook CPC costs in check even as the platform evolves and competition rises.
What is a Good CPC on Facebook?
A “good” CPC on Facebook depends on your profit margins and return on ad spend goals. If you can make a $20 profit from a $5 click, then that CPC is excellent. But for lower margin products, $1-2 CPC may be better targets.
Some general benchmarks for “good” Facebook CPC by industry include:
- E-commerce: $0.50 – $3
- SaaS: $5 – $10
- B2B Services: $10 – $20
- Mobile Apps: $1 – $2
- Lead Gen: $5 – $15
But these vary widely based on geography, competition, targeting, bidding, and campaign optimization. You may have to initially overpay on CPC to gather conversion data and let Facebook optimize before seeing these CPC levels.
How Low Can You Go?
Is there a floor to how low your Facebook CPC can theoretically go? In a low competition scenario with highly relevant targeting and creative, you could see CPCs as low as $0.05 in some tests. However, Facebook also wants advertisers paying fair rates to reach genuine audiences. So they may stop showing ads with extremely low CPCs under certain thresholds.
A CPC of under $0.25 should raise concerns unless you have exceptionally honed targeting and creative. Maintaining strong optimization for clicks, conversions, and relevancy scores tends to keep CPC at profitable levels for both Facebook and advertisers.
Optimizing ROI Beyond Just CPC
While CPC is important, you don’t want to completely minimize it at the expense of other key metrics. A singular focus on decreasing CPC could hurt your results by:
- Reducing reach and impact
- Damaging relevance scores
- Cutting useful targeting options
- Generating lower-quality leads
The best way to optimize is to look holistically at return on ad spend (ROAS). This balances CPC against conversion value to maximize profitability. Some ways to improve ROAS include:
- Calculating lifetime customer value
- Adding upsells to increase order values
- Retargeting customers across devices
- Optimizing landing pages for conversions
- Segmenting your audiences strategically
- Crafting multi-step nurture funnels
Yes, a low CPC is great. But not if it slashes the customer value you gain in exchange. Focus on the complete picture and ROAS wins over the long-run.
Conclusion
Facebook CPC costs depend greatly on your particular audience, region, competition, creative, and optimization tactics. While there are industry averages and benchmarks, you’ll want to calculating your real potential CPC to budget effectively.
With constant testing and improvement of your ads, you can decrease CPC over time while maintaining or boosting results. But don’t take it too far at the expense of reach, relevance, and conversion value. Getting the balance right leads to the best ROI and ROAS.