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How to Change Facebook Ad to Pay Per Click

Cody Schneider••9 min read

If you're trying to make Facebook ads charge you only when someone clicks, you're looking for what's known as a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Cost-Per-Click (CPC) model. While Facebook's system is primarily built around paying for impressions, you can absolutely optimize your campaigns to charge per click. This article will walk you through exactly how to set up your ads to achieve this, why you might want to, and how to do it effectively.

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First, Understand How Facebook Ad Bidding Works

Unlike Google Search Ads, where paying per click is the default, Facebook's advertising platform is built on an auction that prioritizes impressions (CPM, or Cost Per Mille). Essentially, Facebook charges you for every 1,000 times your ad is shown, regardless of whether it's clicked. Why? Because a huge portion of its ad inventory, like the main news feed and Stories, is designed for passive scrolling - not active searching.

However, this doesn't mean you can't control for clicks. Facebook offers several ways to optimize your campaigns so that you're only paying for a specific action, including link clicks. This method instructs Facebook's algorithm to show your ad to people within your target audience who are most likely to click on links. In some specific cases, you can even choose to be billed per click rather than just optimizing for them.

The key is selecting the right campaign settings from the very beginning. Let's break down how to do it.

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Step 1: Choose the Right Campaign Objective

Your ability to set up a PPC-style ad campaign starts with the objective you choose. This tells Facebook what your primary goal is and unlocks different optimization and bidding options. For a focus on clicks, the most direct and effective objective is Traffic.

While other objectives like Sales or Leads might also offer click optimization settings, they are designed to prioritize conversions further down the funnel. If your main goal is simply to get people off Facebook and onto your website, blog, or landing page, the Traffic objective is your best bet.

  • Traffic: The classic choice for driving users to a specific URL. It's built specifically for optimizing for link clicks.
  • Sales (with a specific goal): You might use this to drive catalog sales, and you can still optimize for link clicks, but the algorithm will be looking for a final purchase.
  • Engagement: This can be used to get people to your Facebook page or engage with a post, but it's less focused on external website clicks.

For this guide, we'll focus on the Traffic objective as it provides the clearest path to paying per click.

Step 2: A Walkthrough of the Ad Set Configurations

The real setup happens at the Ad Set level. This is where you define your audience, placements, budget, and, most importantly, your performance goal. Here’s a detailed walkthrough:

1. Create Your Campaign

In your Facebook Ads Manager, click the green "+ Create" button. Select the Traffic objective from the list and click "Continue". This will take you to the campaign setup screen, but you can leave the settings here at their default for now and proceed to the Ad Set.

2. Navigate to the Ad Set Settings

Once you've moved to your Ad Set, this is where you'll make the critical adjustments.

3. Locate the "Performance Goal" Section

Scroll down past the budget and audience sections until you find the section titled Optimization & delivery. Here, the very first field is "Performance goal". This is a crucial setting.

Click the dropdown menu. You will typically see a few options:

  • Maximize number of link clicks: This tells Facebook to get you the most possible clicks for your budget. The algorithm will show your ad to people it identifies as "clicky."
  • Maximize number of landing page views: This is a powerful alternative. It optimizes for people who not only click the link but also wait for your website to fully load. This can weed out accidental clicks and improve the quality of your traffic.
  • Maximize daily unique reach: This focuses on showing your ad to as many unique people as possible once per day.
  • Maximize number of impressions: This is the default CPM model where you're just paying to get your ad in front of eyes.

For a true CPC/PPC model, you'll want to select Maximize number of link clicks.

4. Choose Your Billing Event [When Possible]

Now, for the most important part. Right below your performance goal, you might see an optional link that says "Show more options". Click it. Here, you may see a section called "When you are charged".

You will have two options here on some occasions but note this setting isn't always available to every advertiser or for every campaign.

  • Impression (Default): You pay each time your ad is shown. Even with "Link clicks" as your optimization goal, you're still billed per impression, but the algorithm works hard to make sure those impressions lead to cost-effective clicks.
  • Link Click (CPC): This is the setting you're looking for. When you select this, you are telling Facebook to only charge your account when a user clicks a link on your ad.

If the Link Click (CPC) option is available and selectable, choose it! This locks in your PPC model. If it's greyed out or not present, don't worry. Your campaign is still being heavily optimized for clicks, meaning Facebook will still work to get you the lowest cost-per-click possible. Your effective CPC will still be the most important success metric to track.

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Step 3: Control Your Costs With a Bidding Strategy

Just paying per click isn't enough, you also need to control how much you pay per click. Without setting any limits, Facebook will automatically bid to spend your full daily budget, which could lead to a higher CPC than you'd like. This is where a "Cost per result goal" comes in handy.

Within the Optimization & delivery section, you can set a Cost per result goal. This tells Facebook to aim for an average cost-per-click around the amount you enter. For example, if you set your goal at $1 per click, Facebook will bid in the auction to get you clicks for around that amount. Some might cost less and some might cost more, but it will try to average out at your target over the campaign's lifetime.

So, how do you set a good goal?

  • Check your history: If you've run ads before, check your past performance. What was your average CPC on a campaign with a similar audience or ad creative?
  • Industry benchmarks: Do a quick search for "average Facebook CPC [your industry]" to get a rough starting point.
  • Start conservatively: If you're not sure, it's better to start with a realistic bid. Setting too low a bid may prevent your ad from being delivered altogether because you won't be competitive in the auction.

Using a cost-per-result goal gives you direct control over your spend and ensures your PPC campaign remains profitable.

When To Use PPC (And When Not To)

A CPC-optimized campaign is a powerful tool, but it's not the right fit for every marketing goal. Here's a quick guide on when to use it.

Use a PPC/CPC Model For:

  • Top-of-funnel content promotion: Driving traffic to a new blog post, guidebook, or educational resource.
  • Building newsletter subscribers: Getting clicks to a landing page with a sign-up form.
  • Filling your retargeting pool: The primary goal is just to get users to your website so they can be pixeled for future retargeting ads.
  • Landing page testing: You want to send a high volume of traffic to a new page to test its conversion rate without the algorithm optimizing for something else.

Avoid (Or Use a Different Model) For:

  • Direct e-commerce sales: If you want to sell products, you should choose the Sales objective and optimize for Conversions or Purchase actions. This way, Facebook's algorithm looks for people likely to buy, not just click.
  • High-quality lead generation: If you're looking for demo requests or high-intent leads, optimizing for Leads or Conversations is much more effective. Cheaper clicks can often mean lower-quality prospects.
  • Broad brand awareness: If you just want your brand to be seen by as many people as possible, optimizing for Reach or Impressions under the Awareness objective is faster and more cost-effective.

Best Practices for a Successful Facebook PPC Campaign

Setting up your campaign correctly is only half the battle. To get a truly low CPC, you need your ads to be compelling and relevant.

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1. Eye-Catching Creative

Your image or video has to stop the endless scroll. Use high-quality visuals, bright colors, movement, and clear imagery that relate directly to what you're advertising.

2. Irresistible Ad Copy

The headline and ad text should either pique curiosity, solve a problem, or present a benefit so compelling that users feel they have to click. Follow it up with a strong Call-To-Action (CTA) like "Learn More," "Read Now," or "Get the Guide."

3. Hyper-Targeted Audiences

The more relevant your audience, the more likely they are to click. Don't go too broad. Use detailed targeting, lookalike audiences based on your best customers, or retargeting audiences who already know your brand. A click from a warm audience is almost always cheaper than one from a cold audience.

4. A Fast-Loading Landing Page

The experience after the click matters. If a user clicks your ad but the landing page takes too long to load or doesn't deliver on the ad's promise, they may bounce. Facebook might even penalize you with higher costs if it detects poor landing page performance.

Final Thoughts

Making your Facebook ads work on a pay-per-click basis comes down to selecting the Traffic objective and configuring your ad set to optimize for link clicks, sometimes allowing you to be directly charged per click. This is an excellent strategy for driving top-of-funnel traffic, but remember that for goals like sales or quality leads, a conversion-based optimization is usually much more effective.

Tracking performance metrics like CPC across your various campaign goals and channels can quickly become a manual, time-consuming task. At Graphed, we simplify this by allowing you to connect platforms like Facebook Ads and Google Analytics in seconds. We enable you to create real-time dashboards to monitor all your key metrics in one place using simple, natural language so you can spend less time pulling reports and more time acting on insights.

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