[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/occ-the-elusive-one-cent-click\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/occ-the-elusive-one-cent-click\/","headline":"OCC – The Elusive One Cent Click","name":"OCC – The Elusive One Cent Click","description":"A one cent click?\u00a0 Is that possible?\u00a0 We hear complaints on a daily basis how much the cost of digital advertising has gone up.\u00a0 Remember when you could be profitable in your niche simply by putting some keywords into Google Ads and making a boatload of cash?\u00a0 Those good old days are gone. Or are … Continue reading OCC – The Elusive One Cent Click<\/span><\/a>","datePublished":"2020-05-14","dateModified":"2026-08-17","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/author\/dave-burnett\/#Person","name":"Dave Burnett","url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/author\/dave-burnett\/","identifier":5,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7d9ce54bf7884db06c868d4c3d9f401d81cecc940d6403409642a6a34d06caa8?s=96&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7d9ce54bf7884db06c868d4c3d9f401d81cecc940d6403409642a6a34d06caa8?s=96&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"AOK Marketing","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AOK-Marketing-Logo.png","url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AOK-Marketing-Logo.png","width":126,"height":53}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/US_One_Cent_Obv.png","url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/US_One_Cent_Obv.png","height":2000,"width":2000},"url":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/occ-the-elusive-one-cent-click\/","about":["Adwords","Bing\/Adcenter","Conversion Rate Optimization","Lead Generation","Online Marketing Essentials","PPC - Pay Per Click Marketing","Search Marketing"],"wordCount":1375,"keywords":["Best PPC","Effective PPC campaigns"],"articleBody":"A one cent click?\u00a0 Is that possible?\u00a0 We hear complaints on a daily basis how much the cost of digital advertising has gone up.\u00a0 Remember when you could be profitable in your niche simply by putting some keywords into Google Ads and making a boatload of cash?\u00a0 Those good old days are gone.Or are they?To be clear we’re not talking about Google Display, or YouTube, or Facebook or anything else.\u00a0 We’re talking about Google search text ads.\u00a0 Go to Google.com, type in your keywords, and get clicks for $0.01.Yes, it is possible.\u00a0 And we’ll show you how.Before we get there, let’s address a few things.\u00a0 First and foremost, you can still get clicks for $0.01 in 2020.\u00a0 And you can get lots of them if you’re in the right niche.\u00a0 Here’s a screen shot from the last 30 days: For all you pros out there let me answer your first question.\u00a0 No, this is not a branded search term.\u00a0 It is a broad match, non-branded term.\u00a0 Can you imagine those impression numbers on a brand search?\u00a0 That would be awesome.Now I can hear you getting grumpy at me.\u00a0 You think I’m full of it.\u00a0 You’ve tried everything and it just can’t happen on Google search anymore.\u00a0 Not with those numbers.We were in the same boat until we were able to find the right mix of ingredients to cook up some awesome results.\u00a0 Let’s go over those now.How They Make MoneyOK, here’s a little bit of math for you detail oriented people out there.This site makes money by serving ads through Google AdSense.\u00a0 If you’re not familiar with it, it’s ads on a page that generate revenue based on clicks and impressions.\u00a0 Think of the ads you see when you visit a free news site, or a sports page.\u00a0 Those ads generate revenue for the site owner.This client earns $0.009\u00a0(a little less than a cent) per page view from Google AdSense alone.\u00a0 There are other advertising products out there, but let’s keep it simple.That’s the first part of the math: For every page that someone views on their site, they get $0.009.The second part of the math is the average number of page views per visitor is 2.\u00a0 Said another way, each person who visits the site views an average of 2 pages.\u00a0 So for each visitor they earn $0.018 in revenue, or almost 2 cents ($0.009 per page view x 2 page views per visitor = $0.018 in revenue).\u00a0 Still with me?The bottom line is if they can bring people to the site for anything less than $0.018, they make money from each one of those visitors.It turns out, across all devices in a 30 day period we were able to bring non-branded paid search traffic to the site for a blended cost of $0.0126 per click (above you see they spent $2,931.94, and generated 233,314 clicks, which is $2931.94\/233314 = $0.0126 per click.\u00a0 As above this is rounded down to $0.01 per click = OCC).So their bottom line profit is $0.0054 per click ($0.018 – $0.126 = $0.0054), or just over half a cent per click.Since they got 233,314 clicks in the last 30 days, they generated a PROFIT of $1259.90 from AdSense from this one campaign in 30 days.\u00a0 That doesn’t even take into account the other display ads they have on the page, or the value of the 528,168 ad impressions, or any other revenue from the products they sell.\u00a0 They made a LOT more than that, but I’m trying to keep it simple here.That’s right.\u00a0 No CPA calculations, no complex conversion calculations, just straight math.\u00a0 Every person who visits their website generates cash for them.The secret sauce: How did they get to One Cent Clicks?Site AuthorityThe client is a company who has an established brand presence across North America in multiple channels, not just digital and paid search.\u00a0 So there is a ton of support for the website in general.\u00a0 They have great SEO and are generating tons of organic page views per month.This gives the site tremendous authority as far as the search algorithm is concerned, and the short version is the more authority, the cheaper the cost per click (CPC).Quality ScoreQuality score is a term that Google (and others) use for determining how relevant your ads and targeting are for the end user, based on their search terms.The reason this is important is the higher the quality score, the lower your CPC. Higher score = cheaper clicks on ads.Here the quality score numbers for this campaign are 10\/10 (and that is as good as it gets).KeywordsRelevant keywords are a huge factor in determining how much you pay per click.\u00a0 The more relevant, the cheaper the clicks.Let’s say for example your site is an authority on dog treats, and you start advertising for vacation packages, Google will make it very expensive for you to show your ads for vacation packages because you have a dog treats site.\u00a0 Those ads are not relevant.Google wants people coming back to their site, google.com, and clicking on more ads.\u00a0 They really don’t care about your site, but they want to serve relevant results to keep you coming back to google.com to find what you’re looking for.That’s how they make 95+% of their money.\u00a0 If you’re looking for a vacation and you end up on a dog treats site, you aren’t coming back to start your search on Google.AdsYour paid search ads, although seemingly simple, are actually a complex mix of motivation and inspiration within a set number of characters.\u00a0 You want people to click, so you write your ads in as compelling a way as possible.Ads are the glue that hold the whole process together.\u00a0 They impact your quality score by aligning with the keyword search term people type in the search box.A relevant ad, showing when a keyword is typed in, will result in a high click through rate (CTR).\u00a0 Bottom line, the higher the CTR, the better.Back to my vacation packages keywords and dog treats keyword example, you could write an ad that says ‘Great treats for your dog, and great deals on hotels, click here”.It’s a little relevant, and kind of reflects the keywords typed in, but wouldn’t get a high quality score because of the questionable user experience.\u00a0\u00a0Are you advertising for dog treats?\u00a0 For vacation packages?What are they going to experience when they click on the ad?That brings us to landing pages.Landing PagesYou want to have great alignment from your keywords, to your ads, to your landing pages (the page that people see first when they visit your site.\u00a0 They ‘land’ there.)If you sell dog treats, your keywords should specify ‘dog treats’.\u00a0 Along with relevant and aligned keywords, your ads should support the fact you sell dog treats.Ad copy such as ‘Amazing deals on dog treats for the fur-baby you love’ would align very well with what you do if you sell dog treats.Now when they click on the ad and get to the landing page, you want to show them a variety of dog treats.\u00a0 This creates alignment, and a great quality score.Keyword ==>> Ads ==>> Landing PageReally, it’s that simple.People make it really complex for some reason, but this is it.How do you get OCC?So how did we do it?\u00a0 How did we get them tens of thousands of dollars in revenue from page views alone (not including actual purchases made)?Step by step:Researched and discovered a niche they had a ton of authority in.Discovered some relevant keywords that had lots and lots of searches.Discovered there was very little competition for the keywords we could target.We ensured great alignment between keywords, ads, and landing page experience.We set up tracking and reporting, so they knew exactly what they were earning from each click.We maxed out their search impression share (showing their ads as often as possible).Interested to see what opportunities there are for you?\u00a0 Get in touch, we’d be happy to help you figure it out."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"OCC – The Elusive One Cent Click","item":"https:\/\/aokmarketing.com\/occ-the-elusive-one-cent-click\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]