CPC
Cost per click
In short
CPC is what you pay on average for one click on an ad. Spend NOK 1,000 and get 20 clicks, and your CPC is NOK 50.
CPC is ad spend divided by the number of clicks. In Google Ads you set the most you are willing to pay, but the price you actually pay is decided in an auction every time someone searches. That is why CPC varies from keyword to keyword and from day to day.
Why the price varies, and why that is fine
Searches where many advertisers compete for the same customers tend to be expensive per click. That is not necessarily a problem. A NOK 80 click from someone searching "emergency plumber" can be worth far more than ten NOK 5 clicks from people who are only curious.
A low CPC is not a goal in itself. What you really want to know is what each customer costs. That number is called CPA.
How to use the number
Pull three figures from your ad account for last month: cost, clicks and number of enquiries. Divide cost by clicks, and you have CPC. Divide cost by enquiries, and you have CPA. If CPC is low and CPA is high, the problem probably sits in the keywords or on the website, not in the price. Then it helps more to tidy up the keywords and improve the click-through rate and the landing page than to bid lower.
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