CPC vs. SmartCPC: Choosing the Best Option for Testing

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Cost-Per-Click (CPC) is a tried-and-true option for affiliate marketers, where you bid on every click a user makes. There are a few well-known alternatives to this bidding model, like Cost-Per-Mille (CPM) and Cost-Per-View (CPV), but basically that’s it.

And this is where we’d like to highlight the so-called Smart bidding models from RollerAds. We won’t cover SmartCPM here, because it deserves a separate article; instead, we’ll focus on SmartCPC and the related case study. After all, it’s best to compare alternatives head-on, just like with A/B testing.

Make sure to read to the end, as our partners have prepared a special promo code exclusively for our readers.

A Word on Traditional CPC

Traditional CPC (and CPM in that regard) features fixed bidding, so you need to change the bid value manually every time you optimize your ad spend. Having a single CPC campaign is OK, but oftentimes affiliates run a handful of them and every campaign requires adjustments.

Besides, classic CPC can be suboptimal for testing, since you need to input some bid to start getting any data for optimization—a vicious circle at its best.

SmartCPC solves both issues by letting you choose the upper threshold for your bidding strategy. After that, the algorithm chooses the optimal bid depending on the characteristics of the auction, your threshold, and its “aggressiveness” (more on that later in the article).

Register on RollerAds to see how Smart models work firsthand. For those of you who are still not convinced, read on to see how SmartCPC performs against CPC when it comes to testing.

Case Study: Launching with CPC vs. SmartCPC

Since many advertisers have their doubts against “game changers”, it was only logical to conduct the A/B testing of SmartCPC and CPC. For this case, a Survey offer was chosen.

Additionally, discover top survey offers on Mobidea.

• Ad format: Direct Click
• Bid model: CPC
• Category: Survey
• GEO: Australia
• Device: Mobile
• OS: Android (10–15 versions)
• Payout: $0.15

Launching with CPC

Since CPC is more common, it was only logical to start with it. To test this bid model, RollerAds opted for the Direct Click ad format, which is their unique ad format.

After that, they entered the campaign name, target URL, and the GEO specified in the offer, and disabled proxy traffic.

The standard setup procedure continued with planning the budget strategy. The CPC bid was set to $0.05. To protect the budget from overspending, their media buyers left the total budget without caps, but set $20 as the daily limit. After all, they needed to gather enough data for this case study.

OS targets were chosen based on the offer’s KPIs, and the campaign was submitted for moderation, thus finishing the test campaign’s setup process.

CPC Test Optimization

Fast-forward to the first results and subsequent optimization. Please note that things might look laissez-faire here, but when you analyze your data initially, make sure to pay close attention. Making any mistake during the first runs can be costly.

Day 1: After the first day of running traffic, zones with low ROI were excluded.

Day 2-3: Business as usual, red zones are turned off to find the best sources.

After three days of running the CPC campaign, media buyers had not found a single zone with the potential for profit. They ended up with a negative ROI of -66.64% and a loss of $37.

Launching with SmartCPC

Since we’re talking about the A/B testing here, the same above survey offer was used to ensure that only bid models were compared against each other:

Multigeo – Sweep Survey (Public) – CPS

• Ad format: Direct Click
• Bid model: SmartCPC
• Category: Survey
• GEO: Australia
• Device: Mobile
• OS: Android (10–15 versions)
• Payout: $0.15

Same as before, RollerAds’ media buyers chose Direct Click, entered the campaign name and target URL, selected the GEO specified in the offer, and disabled proxy traffic.

The SmartCPC model has a peculiar setting: the bid control slider, which allows you to set the bid higher or lower than the average auction price to manipulate the volume of impressions. Although you can set it in any position you like, it is better for beginners to leave it in the middle position—that’s what RollerAds settled for themselves anyway.

With SmartCPC, you don’t set a fixed bid, but a maximum amount you’re willing to pay for a click. This can be cost-efficient when trying out new zones and minimizing the losses on tried-and-true sources.

Just like before, testers set a daily limit of $20 without capping the campaign’s total budget.

The final step was to choose the OS and OS versions. After the campaign was moderated, the test began.

SmartCPC Test Optimization

Day 1: Business as usual; tests first, optimization second: all the zones in red were turned off.

Days 2 and 3: The same process, zones without conversions were turned off.

It should be noted that zones with low ROI were also turned off to make things easier and faster.

Day 4: This is what the final results looked like.

Test Results

SmartCPC test also resulted in negative ROI (-16.70%), though it performed significantly better than the CPC test (-66.64%). Despite the negative outcome, SmartCPC brought proper intel—a whitelist of converting zones and feeds. This data allows you to continue testing with more precise fixed bids. 

You can create a similar whitelist yourself; just use any tracker available and sort the lines by conversions. In our particular case, zones with low ROI were excluded.

The same goes for feeds.

Whitelists can be filtered by OS versions to see which ones convert better.

After compiling whitelists of zones, feeds, and OS versions, the time was ripe to launch a more precise CPC ad campaign.

Pro tip:

You don’t need to switch to the CPC model after a SmartCPC test. You can continue tweaking the options, like excluding underperforming zones, adding new targeting options, setting custom bids for specific zones (which the system will treat as fixed bids), and, if needed, adjusting the bid slider to increase competitiveness for traffic. With this strategy, you can also scale up within one campaign. 

Scaling with CPC Model

The offer remained the same, but RollerAds media buyers added custom bids based on the whitelist, which was made using previous tests.

As stated before, you can continue working with the SmartCPC bid model. The CPC model was chosen to better illustrate the difference and to make the most of the test quicker.

Of course, they also blacklisted the underperforming zones to ensure high performance.

To polish the funnel even further, they entered the best-performing OS versions.

Once all the data was entered, the campaign was ready for moderation and subsequent launch.

CPC Campaign Optimization

Day 1: The first step was to set custom bids for zones that converted but brought little-to-no ROI.

Day 2: Then, the bid was increased for zones that showed a positive trend earlier.

Day 3: Zones and feeds that still failed to deliver were wiped out of the whitelist.

Day 4: The final result was well worth the effort: a net profit of $10.14 and an ROI of 10.95% in four days. Scale it up to capitalize on the initial success.

Comparing the Results

Let’s recap all the steps and outcomes. The first CPC test resulted in a negative ROI of -66.64%. Media buyers lost $37, and the data suggested that any future attempts to improve the campaign performance would be futile.

When media buyers switched to SmartCPC, they also suffered from a negative ROI of -16.70% and lost $6.40. Although no profit was made, RollerAds specialists got the data to form a whitelist of zones and feeds. So far, it was all about testing and gathering data, but now it was time to put the knowledge obtained into practice.

When media buyers switched to CPC and applied all the knowledge, they made $10.14 in revenue and achieved 10.95% in 4 days. In fact, the second day was already profitable and covered the losses of the first day.

But just to be on the safe side, media buyers ran their campaign for a couple more days. Run it for a few more, and you have some good chances to cover all the losses, including the ones during the first two tests.

RollerAds recommends using SmartCPC at the start for data gathering. This way, you can save on costs for affordable zones and try out more expensive sources. Often, a zone with high bids delivers exceptional performance and is well worth it.

SmartCPC is a solid pick throughout the campaign, but quite commonly, it’s more beneficial to switch to traditional CPC when you discover well-performing zones and feeds. If you insist on carrying on with SmartCPC, make sure to exclude underperforming zones, add new targeting parameters, set custom bids for individual zones (which the system will interpret as fixed bids), and, if necessary, adjust the bid slider to boost your competitiveness for traffic.

Wrapping Up

SmartCPC and CPC are not mutually exclusive; you can combine them in a grand scheme of things. For the purposes of testing and discovering new sources, SmartCPC reigns supreme. But after that, CPC enables profit maximization, and that’s what the majority of affiliates want, isn’t it right?

And by the way, if you want to maximize your profit too, join RollerAds now and start your first campaign.

See, they offer more than just a self-service platform and expertise; RollerAds has innovative bidding models, campaign kits, tried-and-true ad formats, a built-in library of creatives, and so many other tools to prove that classic ad formats, like Push notifications, never get old.

Use the exclusive code Mobidea50 before December 31st, 2025, to get +$50 on your first deposit! That’s right, spend money to earn more money, and use the right tools at the right time to amplify the results.

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