Amazon PPC A→Z · Lesson 6 · 3:29
CPC: what a click really costs, and why it keeps moving Your bid is the ceiling; the CPC is the price, set by the auction, and it moves with competition, placement and your own bid settings. Check the CPC you paid every week against what a click is worth.
The video plays from YouTube (no cookies until you press play). 1 Put the CPC you paid next to your bid for every keyword, over the last 7 days. If the CPC sits close to the bid, you pay your bid: treat the bid as the price. 2 Compare that CPC to what a click is worth (profit before ads × conversion rate, Lesson 1) at that keyword's real conversion rate. Above it: lower the bid. 3 With dynamic bids up and down on, the most you can pay is 2 × your bid (Amazon). Keep that under what a click is worth, or check that the raised clicks really convert better (CPC ÷ profit before ads = the conversion you need). Judging a keyword by the bid you typed, or by an average CPC from a blog, instead of the CPC you paid next to what a click is worth to you. With up and down on, a $1.20 bid can cost up to $2.40.
0:00 Same bid, three weeks apart 0:27 The rule 0:49 What a click is worth 1:04 Three weeks of CPC 1:43 Up and down: when it pays 2:12 What you pay vs your bid 2:29 The common mistake 2:41 The tools, with limits 2:54 Do this week Show Hide 0:00 What does a click really cost you? It's not your bid. 0:04 One water bottle, one bid: a dollar twenty. In October, a click cost ninety cents, and a hundred clicks made sixty dollars. 0:13 Three weeks later: same bid, same hundred clicks. Minus thirty. 0:18 The bid stayed at a dollar twenty. Here's what changed. 0:22 Lesson six: what a click really costs, and why it keeps moving. 0:27 CPC means cost per click: what you actually pay when someone clicks your ad. 0:33 Your bid is the most you're willing to pay. The CPC comes out of the auction, and Amazon says the auction weighs more than the bid. 0:41 The more in demand a keyword is, or the more visible the spot, the more a click costs. And that changes all the time. 0:49 The example: our steel water bottle, forty dollars. Fifteen dollars are left before ads, and one click in ten buys. 0:58 So a click is worth a dollar fifty to us. That's the line the CPC has to stay under. 1:04 Week one, October. A hundred clicks at ninety cents: ninety dollars spent, ten sales, a hundred and fifty left before ads. Plus sixty. 1:14 Week two, November. More sellers bid on the same keyword, so the CPC climbs to our full bid, a dollar twenty. Plus thirty. 1:23 Week three, we switch on dynamic bids, up and down. Amazon can raise a bid by up to a hundred percent, so a dollar twenty can become two forty. 1:33 Our clicks now cost a dollar eighty on average. A hundred and eighty spent: minus thirty. On average, every click costs more than it's worth. 1:43 To be fair, up and down raises the bid on clicks Amazon thinks will buy. If they really do, a higher CPC can still pay. 1:52 The check: a dollar eighty divided by fifteen is twelve percent. About one click in eight would have to buy. At one in ten, it loses. 2:02 The fix: a base bid of seventy five cents keeps the most you can pay at a dollar fifty. Or keep the dollar twenty, and turn up and down off. 2:12 Amazon says you never pay more than your bid, and often less. An FTC lawsuit filed in August claims advertisers paid their full bid far more often. Amazon disputes it, and no court has decided. 2:26 Either way, plan as if you pay your bid. 2:29 The common mistake: judging a keyword by the bid you typed, or by an average CPC from a blog. The number that counts is the CPC you paid, next to what a click is worth to you. 2:41 The tools help, with limits. Amazon's reports show the CPC for every keyword and placement, for free. But they don't know your margin, and an average hides the expensive days. 2:54 So this week: put the CPC you paid next to your bid, for every keyword, over the last seven days. 3:01 Compare it to what a click is worth, at that keyword's real conversion rate. Above it? Lower the bid. 3:07 With up and down on, the most you can pay is twice your bid. Keep that under what a click is worth, or check that those clicks really buy more. 3:16 Your bid is the ceiling. The CPC is the price. Check the price every week. 3:22 Next lesson: conversion rate, the number your bid depends on. See you there. Not affiliated with Amazon. Numbers in this video are a worked example. Published 4 November 2026.