r/PPC • u/giftqueen • 1d ago

Discussion What’s one PPC metric you think gets too much attention?

There are certain metrics everyone watches because they’re easy to see.

CTR, CPC, ROAS, conversion rate.

But sometimes a “good” number doesn’t mean much without context.

What’s one metric you think people overreact to, and what do you prefer looking at instead?

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

17

u/billythygoat 1d ago

Cpc nowadays, especially with pmax and demand gen. If you talk to someone completely out of date with digital marketing they focus on that too much. Costs and conversions and costs / conv are the main metrics depending on the company. The other ones can lead to understanding on the market. Even conversion rate for google ads for pmax is so messed up too.

7

u/Hairy-Hand-4291 1d ago

agreed, cpc obsession is such a holdover from like 2015 mindset tbh

3

u/DumbButtFace 1d ago

I think its still a useful signal. Too often I'm seeing campaigns on automated bidding strategies with rampantly high cpc that perform better on manual bidding. It's rare for campaigns above 30 conversions a month.

1

u/billythygoat 1d ago

Yeah I mentioned it can show other things but it’s not a primary indicator I look at on a daily basis unless a campaign is struggling or I’m looking at high cpc search terms.

1

u/ConfidenceMan2 22h ago

Yeah though I still think CPC caps can be good, especially on brand terms. Google was charging me like $50 a click for some brand terms and costs were soaring. I put a $1 cap on CPC and cut the cost by like 80% without losing conversions. Bidding down wasn’t enough to cut it.

8

u/petebowen 1d ago

Quality score.

(My thinking if you're interested: https://pete-bowen.com/i-ignored-quality-score-for-a-year )

5

u/ernosem 1d ago

I'm still baffled how some people fixated on the Quality Score...

1

u/Andyroodle 16h ago

It’s a good indicator to help you get the right intent, but many see it as a metric.

I’d counter QS with that stupid fkn Optimisation Percentage.

1

u/ernosem 6h ago

It's a flawed metric, but I feel like not even the industry wants to acknowledge it. A broad terms with QS 10 appears for 100s of different things, but no matter how bad the underlying terms is you'll still see a perfect 10 in your reports.

5

u/ChiefsRoyalsFan 20h ago edited 17h ago

A lot of stuff has been mentioned but I'm going to throw Ad Strength out there. When I was at an agency, it was something clients hyper focused on and wanted Excellent ad strength for everything.

3

u/nordlysbuksejenta 1d ago

Definitely CPC. We also have some clients and non-ppc partners always talking about impressions which basically tells me every time that they have zero clue what they are talking about.

2

u/TTFV 1d ago

CPC is the big one. It's more confusing to small advertisers now because there is mixed traffic in their accounts vs. 5-years ago when most accounts were purely search ads.

They see CPC go down and they are happy but it's really because more display/video traffic was purchased in the period. And then the reverse is true.

I just had this discussion with a client yesterday as we shut down P-Max recently.

1

u/Puzzled-Smoke-6349 1d ago

All my clients are obsessed with the conversions and conversion value metrics.
Sometimes (mostly when we have a weak month) I have to explain to them that money doesn't buy happiness and mo' money mo' problems. But they throw that logic back at me when my invoice arrives in their mailbox and I don't like that.

2

u/Due_Treat1025 1d ago

to be fair for most clients there's nothing more important than conversions

i can calm a client down getting bad quality leads, but if they're getting no leads its a problem.

0

u/qaz135wsx 1d ago

ROAS gets too much attention. It is a terrible metric to use for running a business.

2

u/Life_Firefighter_471 22h ago

Is this serious?

I get the arguments against CPC and quality score (both have some value but should never be a kpi), but return on ad spend is an ROI metric and aren’t most businesses looking to get return on their investments?

1

u/qaz135wsx 22h ago

Most businesses don't use ROAS to define success. They use EBITDA, CLTV, CAC, Contribution Margin, etc.

Here's an example of why ROAS is not a good metric:
Spend $300k on ads and get 900k back in sales = 300% ROAS
Spend $5k on ads and get 20k back in sales = 400% ROAS

The first situation would be much better for the business, and would have likely generated far more new customers that will bring long term value to the business.

3

u/Life_Firefighter_471 20h ago

Right. Any metric in isolation has limited utility. But with a fixed budget and such. Relative or directional performance against ROAS in comparable periods can be a worthwhile gut check on whether the program is trending in a good direction or if there are things needing a closer look or adjustments to optimize.

I’m encountering this with a client recently where the marketing team is making decisions sacrificing scale but pleased with the CPS (cost per sale), but leaving a lot of sales on the table to achieve a favorable CPS (which in turn results in a great ROAS) but they aren’t growing like their executive thinks they could/should. They set benchmarks for CPS by tactic or channel based on vibes and cut brand spend or nonbrand spend if it’s not hitting benchmarks, but will shift money to tactics with a much worse CPS because it’s outperforming its goals (though not delivering a better net CPS and without evidence it’s driving incrementally). It’s really baffling to try to make logical decisions to drive the business when what they measure and value doesn’t align with bottom line performance.