cost per engagement

Intermediate 📣 Marketing / Advertising

Definition

What you pay for each interaction with your ad—likes, shares, comments, or clicks—turning social media validation into a line item on your budget. It's the metric that reveals exactly how much you're spending to get strangers to double-tap your content.

Example Usage

Our Instagram campaign had a cost per engagement of $0.75, which sounds reasonable until you realize most of those engagements were angry face emojis.

Origin

Social media advertising metric that emerged with Facebook and Instagram ad platforms in the 2010s

Fun Fact

Engagement rates vary wildly by platform, with TikTok averaging 5.96% and Twitter limping along at 0.045%, proving that not all social media is created equal.

Source: Social media advertising metrics

Related Terms

Translate This Term

See “cost per engagement” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

Try the Translator