CPC
In practice, for a UK buyer
The paragraph above is the neutral answer. This is the part a vendor glossary leaves out.
A CPC transfers delivery risk to the seller, which is why it dominates the channels where clicks are plentiful and is almost unknown on television, cinema and out-of-home. Comparing a CPC channel to a CPM channel on cost per click is a category error: it flatters search and tells you nothing about whether the other channels created the demand search then harvested.
What this one connects to
Most confusion in media buying comes from two adjacent terms being used interchangeably, so these are the neighbours worth reading next.
CPM
The cost of one thousand advertising impressions, and the standard price unit for advertising bought on attention rather than on action. Television, streaming, audio, out-of-home and cinema are all quoted this way.
CPA
The cost of one completed action, whether that is a sale, a lead or a booking, calculated by dividing spend by the actions attributed to it. That makes it entirely dependent on the attribution model underneath.
Paid search
Advertising against what someone typed into a search engine, bought by keyword and match type and usually paid per click. The only major channel where the buyer is responding to stated intent rather than inferring it.
Attribution
Assigning credit for an outcome to the advertising touchpoints that preceded it, according to a rule the advertiser chose. A description of correlation in a conversion path, not a demonstration that the advertising caused anything.
More on buying and commercials
How media is transacted and where the money goes. The terms in this group are the ones a fee conversation turns on.
45 minutes. Bring a real brief and we compile it live. You describe one audience and watch it compile into seven targeting specifications, each with the score for how much of the definition survived.
Talk it through