Facebook updates its cost-per-click definition to only include clicks to websites and apps, not likes, shares, and comments
here's how people in the industry feel about it Christine Lu / Facebook Developers : Announcing Marketing APIs v2.4 David Cohen / SocialTimes : Facebook Changes Measurement of Cost per Click Kurt Wagner / Re/code : Facebook Redefines the Word ‘Click’ to Satisfy Advertisers Seeking Alpha : Facebook rethinks ad pricing, will no longer charge for likes/shares/comments Jack Marshall / Wall Street Journal : Facebook Tweaks Cost-Per-Click Ad Fees Fitz Tepper / TechCrunch : Facebook Wants Your Attention, So It's Charging Separately For Ad Clicks That Send You Away Ken Yeung / VentureBeat : Facebook updates its cost-per-click definition to only include clicks to websites and apps Chris Crum / WebProNews : Here's How Facebook Just Redefined Cost Per Click Tweets: Josh Constine / @joshconstine : Fb separates CPC for link clicks vs Likes/shares. Could let it charge more for ads that send users offsite http://www.facebook.com/... Sarah Frier / @sarahfrier : Basically means “likes” and “shares” will no longer be factored into Facebook's ad pricing https://www.facebook.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
In mid-2015 Facebook's cost-per-click was inflated by cheap engagement actions — likes, shares, comments — so advertisers paying for outbound traffic were effectively subsidizing social interactions that never left the platform. The redefinition narrows CPC to clicks that actually send users to websites and apps, a direct response to advertiser pressure covered at the time by Re/code, the Wall Street Journal, and TechCrunch.
The move sits inside a broader 2015 push to make Facebook's ad system friendlier to direct-response buyers: months later it also loosened its advertising rules for Instant Articles so publishers could pack more ads into each piece. And the click itself was already losing status as the industry's unit of account — five years on, Google stopped disclosing cost-per-click and paid-click figures altogether as the metric steadily declined.
First-order effects
- Advertisers buying traffic to their own sites and apps now pay only for outbound clicks, so like-, share-, and comment-driven engagements stop inflating their bills — while Facebook's reported average CPC mechanically rises even if underlying spend does not.
Second-order effects
- Brands running pure-engagement campaigns get comparatively cheaper inventory, tilting budget allocation toward direct-response objectives, and publishers with strong off-platform destinations gain an argument for shifting more spend into Facebook's click-priced formats.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the click cedes ground as the industry's pricing currency: Facebook's own market pricing was later benchmarked in CPMs by Gupta Media's CPM tracking, and platforms increasingly retire legacy metrics in favor of impression-based pricing and proprietary definitions they control themselves.
The trend: Social ad pricing is migrating from the click to the impression as platforms redefine what counts as engagement in their own favor.