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Settling the CPC Debate

Varos's take on the CPC debate (based on what we see from 4k+ brands).

Methodology: in the Varos dashboard, you can choose between anchoring a "high performer" on their performance in a certain metric (i.e., High Performers are considered the top third percentile for [ROAS]) OR you can choose to rank per each individual metric. For this, I chose high performers to be ranked by the best ROAS.

I looked at 3 different views: all verticals (not filtered for industry), the Fashion vertical, and the Beauty vertical. Each spending a min of $50k/mo and AOV between $1-1,000. Data is from the past 12 months.

In all three cases, high performers had the lowest CPCs. Sometimes, you see in the data that a high performer has higher CPMs than the low performers or a lower CTR than the median, but it's usually the case they have lower CPCs than their worse performing peers.

If you look at the image of the line chart, you see that in the last 12 months, at no point did the high performers have a higher CPC than the median or low performers.

There are obviously cases where a company has high CPCs and really high CVRs, but the norm is that high performers have low CPCs.

That being said, the argument that individual funnel metrics should not be the primary focus is true. In the end, you want a low CPP / high ROAS, not necessarily a low CPC.

(FWIW I looked at the numbers ranked by CPP and it came out the same)

Benchmarks for FaceBook Ads filtered by ad spend per month and AOV, showing all verticals. Data from last 12 months.
Benchmarks for FaceBook Ads from the above, now filtered for the Fashion vertical.
Benchmarks for FaceBook Ads from the above, now filtered for the Beauty vertical.
Trend line for FaceBook Ads CPC in the last 12 months for the Fashion vertical, showing high performers vs others.
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Tweets

Chase Dimond | Email Marketing Nerd ๐Ÿ“ง
@ecomchasedimond

Bottom line: Iโ€™m recommending Varos to you all because itโ€™s FREE (for now) and itโ€™s already added a ton of value for myself and my clients.Check it out ๐Ÿ‘‡

โ€

Social Savannah
@social_savannah

I would definitely recommend checking out Varos. With Varos you can easily see how your peers are performing, for free. You get insights into not only TikTok Ads benchmarks, but also similar data for Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and more. #VarosAmbassador

jason wong
@eggrolI

Varos allows thousands merchants to upload anonymize marketing data across meta and google and aggregating it to show what the average is across different categories and ad spend

Cody Plofker
@codyplof

With varos.com, I can see exactly how our performance across channels stacks up against our competitors in our space.

Barry Hott โ˜„๏ธ
@binghott

Compare your ad performance to benchmarks of companies just like yours, anonymously.
I would've killed for this tool years ago and now it's here and oh it's free. Amazing.

Ron Shah
@obviceo

I've been seeing some content about @Varos_com so we decided to check it out.

One underrated feature of theirs is the Shopify Benchmarking, which is FREE btw.

Literally impossible to access this data anywhere else. Check out what we're seeing at @my_obvi ๐Ÿ‘‡

โ€

William Harris
@wmharris101

I'm loving what @Varos_com is doing with providing much more relevant benchmarks for #ecommerce... especially since it shows that we are absolutely DOMINATING @Elumynt on #facebookads!

This is in the Baby and Children vertical.#fbads #ppcchat #retail #dtc

Chase Dimond | Email Marketing Nerd ๐Ÿ“ง
@ecomchasedimond

Bottom line: Iโ€™m recommending Varos to you all because itโ€™s FREE (for now) and itโ€™s already added a ton of value for myself and my clients.Check it out ๐Ÿ‘‡

โ€

Social Savannah
@social_savannah

I would definitely recommend checking out Varos. With Varos you can easily see how your peers are performing, for free. You get insights into not only TikTok Ads benchmarks, but also similar data for Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and more. #VarosAmbassador

jason wong
@eggrolI

Varos allows thousands merchants to upload anonymize marketing data across meta and google and aggregating it to show what the average is across different categories and ad spend

Cody Plofker
@codyplof

With varos.com, I can see exactly how our performance across channels stacks up against our competitors in our space.

Barry Hott โ˜„๏ธ
@binghott

Compare your ad performance to benchmarks of companies just like yours, anonymously.
I would've killed for this tool years ago and now it's here and oh it's free. Amazing.

Ron Shah
@obviceo

I've been seeing some content about @Varos_com so we decided to check it out.

One underrated feature of theirs is the Shopify Benchmarking, which is FREE btw.

Literally impossible to access this data anywhere else. Check out what we're seeing at @my_obvi ๐Ÿ‘‡

โ€

William Harris
@wmharris101

I'm loving what @Varos_com is doing with providing much more relevant benchmarks for #ecommerce... especially since it shows that we are absolutely DOMINATING @Elumynt on #facebookads!

This is in the Baby and Children vertical.#fbads #ppcchat #retail #dtc