What is the industry average for cost per click?  In other words, how
much do marketers spend to get one person to click onto their web
sites.  I am looking for numbers in terms of cents.  For instance, I
would spend $10,000 to get 10,000 visits/clicks to my site.  My CPC
would be $1.00.  What are the different numbers for different
campaigns (email, banner ads, Pay per click search engines, and
overall)?  I know there are industry averages for banner ad
Click-through rate but I really need industry CPC numbers.  Thanks

These numbers vary above all depending on the lifetime value of
customers in the business you're in. You won't spend the same amount
of money per click if you're selling $10 widgets to consumers or
$1,500 subscriptions to corporate buyers. Try bidding for keywords on
Google Adwords Select, you'll see that some can be gotten for 5 cents,
while others cost $5 a click or more (e.g. "insurance", "mortgage",
"stock", "refinance", "concert" or "ticket").

First off that question can't be answered, and even if it could the
answer would be meaningless unless broken down by sector.

This is the highest CPC on the web. 
http://www.overture.com/d/search/?type=home&tm=1&Keywords=Mesothelioma+&_requestid=2096039

Making the full range - 1 cent to $48. 

Remember the CPC is so dependent on potential ROI, the competitive
environment etc. that it not worth measuring averages across the
board. Also it varies based on position. A top 3 place on Overture
might cost you $3, where you could get the no.4 spot for $0.5. The
difference being that you would not be getting the same level of
traffic as only the top 3 links appear on most of Overtures partner
sites.

What I would say to you is avoid all scheme that promise you X amount
of traffic for X$. They are bollocks, and/or have the potential to be
scams.

If you want to play the CPC game to start with I'd stick to using
Overture and Google Adword Select, but make sure you know vaguely what
you are doing first.

A couple of articles that may help. 

Overture:
http://www.paypermaster.com/autobid.html
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/07-cpc.html

Google Adword Select:
http://www.searchengineguide.com/wi/2002/0327_wi1.html

Forums:

This is probably the best Overture forum on the net. If you go up a
level there is also a very good Google forum.

http://searchengineforums.com/bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=GoTo.com+/+Overture+Forum&number=16&DaysPrune=20&LastLogin=

The Pay per click advertising forum is also very good. 

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum33/index.htm

If you want any more advice, feel free to email me, my address in on
this site
http://netmarketing.blogspot.com - if I can I'll help out. I also have
a list of decent resource on my site.

Other resource links:
http://dmoz.org/Business/Marketing/Internet_Marketing/Resources/Publications/

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Promotion/Search_Engine_Submitting_and_Positioning/News/Search_Engine_Newsletters/

The following is quite good for helping you choose your keywords. For
instance if you type in Internet Marketing - it shows what varient
searches have been done for that phrase over the last month, i.e
Internet Marketing Strategy.

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

As already said, the best thing to do is start interacting with people
on the boards listed above. They won't give you all the info
available, but they will stop you making costly errors.

Hope that helps. Bob

Based on my 4 years and nearly $15 million in online advertising
sales, what I can tell you is that no answer is going to be perfectly
right.

In 1998, we were selling untargeted clicks for over $1.00 each.  This
was well before the proliferation of low-ball brokers who don't really
care about the performance of the advertising - just the money they
make from it.

Realisticly for untargeted clicks, coming via a banner (not a search
engine) you're probably going to pay somewhere between $0.25 and $0.40
CPC, depending on who you choose as your provider.  Targeting adds to
the cost (such as content targeting, geographic targeting, etc). 
Targeting can add as much as 50% to the costs quoted above.

To be honest, I can buy you all the clicks you want @ $0.01 CPC, but
are you really going to see the conversion that you need to be
profitable?  In the media game you really do get what you pay for.

Also, beware of brokers or ad-networks that are really nothing more
than brokers (flipping ad campaigns for a few points of margin).  They
generally aren't as flexible in trying to meet your needs and in my
experience don't really give a damn about the advertisers $$$.

A good option would be to split your budget into 3rds or quarters and
buy on 3 or 4 media properties - distribute your risk, and lower your
overall cost.

If you want more info email me.