Facebook announces CPC change that will please advertisers

The social network has made some significant changes this week. Not only have they handed over more control to users with regard to the content of their News Feed, but they have also totally changed the way in which advertisers will be charged.

As part of its new ads application-programming interface, cost-per-click (CPC) will now only register when a click leads to a visit to another website, or a call-to-action such as “shop now”, to install apps, or to view video content on another website.

While the move will undoubtedly see a rise in CPC, return on investment should be higher as advertisers are paying only for “the most valuable outcome” and not for engagement such as a Like or Share.

“Taking engagement actions out of the calculation makes it easier to evaluate performance-driven campaigns and set bids based on those desired outcomes,” says Marketing Land’s, Ginny Marvin.

“Facebook’s shift to separating off-site clicks from social clicks makes logical sense as they continue their move towards objective based ad buying,” said David Zelniker, product manager for Kenshoo. “This change allows our clients, focused on performance marketing, to pay for the action they care about most: offsite link clicks – whether that be clicks to Shop Now, Install an App, Sign Up, or any other click that takes a consumer to an advertiser’s desired destination.”