<b>Two prices to hold in your head: click cost and lead cost</b>

<b>Two prices to hold in your head: click cost and lead cost</b>

Feeling lost in the numbers? Almost all of sweeps budgeting comes down to two prices. Learn these and the rest gets calm.

Click cost = what you pay each time someone clicks your ad. Often shown as CPC (Cost Per Click), like $0.01 a click.

Lead cost = what it actually costs you to produce one paid lead. This is the number that decides profit, and you only learn it by running traffic.

The link between them is your conversion rate, the share of clicks that become leads.

Tiny example. You pay $0.01 per click. After 1,000 clicks ($10 spent) you got 5 leads.
— Your lead cost = $10 ÷ 5 = $2 per lead.
— Your offer pays $2.50 per lead.
— You earned $12.50, spent $10, profit $2.50. It works.

Now change one number. If only 3 clicks converted, your lead cost is $3.33, above the $2.50 payout. You lose money, even though the click cost never changed.

This is the whole game: cheap clicks do not matter if too few convert. Profit lives in the gap between your lead cost and the payout.

Next step: after your next test, do this one sum — total spent divided by leads — and compare it to the offer payout. That single comparison tells you if you are in the green.