10 ways to keep your cost-per-click low in Google Search Ads
Article topics
- Write strong, relevant ad copy
- Use manual bidding
- Stick to phrase and exact match keywords
- Regularly add negative keywords
- Group your keywords in the right way
- Control who sees your ads with targeting
- Make the most of assets (FKA ad extensions)
- Prioritise your best ads
- Increase your quality score
- Revisit and review your ad campaigns
- Frequently asked questions about cost-per-click in Google Ads
Optimising your Google Search Ad campaigns can be a bit of a balancing act.
You want your ads to be competitive and engaging, but you also want to make sure they don’t cost more than they need to.
After all, you don’t want to set a budget at the start of the day and find you’ve run out of money by lunchtime!
One of the best ways to monitor your Google Ads account is to keep track of your cost-per-click, or CPC. This metric tells you exactly how much you pay every time someone clicks on your ad.
If your cost-per-click is higher than you’d like, there are steps you can take to reduce it. We asked our Google Ads experts to share ten ways to lower your CPC and keep it down.
1. Write strong, relevant ad copy
When writing copy, whether for a landing page, brochure, or social media message, it’s vital to make it as appealing, persuasive, and targeted as possible.
The same logic applies to your search ad copy. You don’t have many characters to play around with, but good copy will pull your target audience in and push the people you don’t want to buy your products and services away.
Take this search ad from HubSpot. It’s easy to understand and clearly talks about the benefits of the platform. By spelling out what prospective customers can expect, it increases the likelihood of people clicking on the ad and converting as a result.
Here are some of our additional tips for writing high-quality Google Ads:
- Use the keywords your target audience is more likely to use. Keyword insertion is great for making your ads more relevant
- Use active rather than passive language. For example, ‘we create the products’ rather than ‘the products are created by us’
- Showcase the benefits of your product or service rather than the features. For example, instead of saying a camera has an extra-long battery life, say users can take even more photos and capture even more memories
- Test different ads to see which your customers respond best to – we recommend at least two ads per ad group
- Use assets to provide more information – we’ll talk more about assets later
2. Use manual bidding
Automated bidding in Google Ads offers many advantages. It saves time and means you can create a Google Ads campaign even if you don’t know much about pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
However, Google can increase your cost-per-click without your permission to make sure your ad appears at the top of the results page.
Manual bidding is where you set how much you’re willing to bid per keyword. This can give you more control and means you can tailor each ad group and campaign to meet different needs.
You can also bring strategy into play to target the right customers. For example, if you run a local brick-and-mortar business, you can opt to bid more for your ads to show to people nearer your store.
If you do use automated bidding, set a maximum cost-per-click bid limit so you don’t overspend, and regularly check your account to make sure you’re getting the right results.
3. Stick to phrase and exact match keywords
While broad match keywords have their benefits, for example, if you want to see which keywords your customers use, they can result in a higher cost-per-click. This is because you risk your ads showing to people who aren’t your target customers.
Phrase match and exact match keywords are best as they give you more control.
Regardless of the keyword match type you use, it’s important to add any irrelevant words and phrases to a negative keyword list…
4. Regularly add negative keywords
If you don’t want your ads to appear for specific words and phrases, a negative keyword list can help.
Let’s imagine you sell luxury red dresses online and notice that your Google Ads appear for search terms like ‘cheap red dresses’ and ‘affordable red dresses.’
This can drive your CPC up as people who aren’t your target audience click on your ads. By adding these keywords to your negative keyword list, either at account or campaign level, your ads are more likely to show to the right people.
You can see which keywords people use to view your ads in the search terms report. Here you can directly add irrelevant search terms to your negative keyword list.
5. Group your keywords in the right way
Organising your keywords into relevant ad groups can help lower your CPC. This is because it allows you to write more relevant ad copy and target your ads towards the right demographics.
You can organise your ad groups in three ways: SKAGs, STAGs, and SIAGs. Here are the pros and cons of each strategy.
Which strategy is right for you? It depends on your industry and the keywords you use. Test the different structures and see which results in the lowest CPC.
The key is managing your ad groups closely, so you have as much control over them as possible.
6. Control who sees your ads with targeting
By showing your ads to the people most likely to buy your products and services, you can reduce your cost-per-click and increase your conversion rate.
Google Ads has lots of targeting options that let you serve your ads to your ideal customers.
For example, you can target people by:
- Location (this can be a country, region, or city) and/or the languages they speak
- Demographic (for example, whether they’re married, own their own home, or have kids)
- Hobbies and interests (Google calls these ‘affinity segments‘)
- The products and services they’re researching (Google calls this ‘in-market audience targeting‘)
You can also target people who have already interacted with your business or bought from you in the past. You can use ‘similar segments’ to expand this and find people who are similar to your existing customers.
As well as specifying who you want to see your ad, you can also identify who you don’t want to see your ad. For example, you can exclude people based on location if you don’t sell to a particular country.
7. Make the most of assets (FKA ad extensions)
Assets are additional pieces of information that Google Ads append to your ad copy in the search results. The benefit is that assets provide more information to prospective customers, meaning fewer irrelevant clicks that drive up your CPC.
Another benefit is that your ad takes up more space, drawing the eye even if your ad isn’t in the number one spot!
The assets you can add include:
- Sitelinks which signpost customers to relevant pages on your site
- Callouts which highlight key features or benefits of your product or service
- Structured snippets which let you list the products or brands you sell
- Call extensions which let users call you directly
- Lead form extensions which let users fill in a lead generation form
- Image extensions which let you add an image to your ad
- Price extensions which show the cost of your product or service
- Promotion extensions which let you advertise a limited-time offer, sale, or discount
- Location extensions which show an address and the user’s proximity. If you have multiple locations, this extension will show the address nearest the user
- App extensions which encourage users to download your app
You can add assets at account, campaign, or ad group level; Google Ads will try different combinations of assets to see which results in the most clicks. Some extensions, like the app and lead form, are exclusive to mobile.
Google Ads can automatically add assets it thinks are relevant at account level; you can turn this option off if you prefer.
8. Prioritise your best ads
Some people think the best way to lower cost-per-click is to reduce the amount they’re willing to bid for their keywords.
The problem with this is that your ad will appear less frequently in the search results, meaning fewer potential customers see your ad, and you get fewer conversions.
A high cost-per-click isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If a particular ad has a high CPC but results in lots of conversions and has a fantastic return on ad spend (ROAS), it’s definitely a keeper!
If your budget is limited, review all your ad groups and campaigns and identify which ones you should invest in. It’s better to focus on a handful of high-performing ads than several middling ones.
9. Increase your quality score
Did you know that the relevance of your ad and the page you link to can have a significant impact on how much you pay per click?
Google Ads assigns a quality score to each of your keywords, from 1 to 10. The higher the score, the less you pay.
The benchmark for quality score is 5. If your quality score is 10, you pay 50% less!
Google Ads uses three criteria to determine your quality score:
- 1. Expected click-through rate. How likely customers are to click on your ad
- 2. Ad relevance. How closely your ad matches search intent
- 3. Landing page experience. How relevant and valuable the page your ad takes visitors to is
- Pausing keywords with a low-quality score and introducing new, more relevant ones
- Creating highly targeted ad copy
- Optimising your landing pages to appeal to the needs of your target customers
- Competitiveness. If your competitors also go after a specific keyword or audience, this can drive the price up
- Vagueness. Irrelevant ad copy, no assets, and not targeting your ad can mean people who aren’t interested in your business click on your ads
- Landing page quality. A poor-quality landing page can mean fewer conversions and can also lead to a lower quality score, which can push up your CPC
- Automated Google Ads campaigns. If you use automation and Google Ads thinks you have a strong chance of getting a click, it will increase your CPC
You can check your quality score by accessing your campaigns data. You can then take steps to improve your quality score, which you can do by:
10. Revisit and review your ad campaigns
And finally, it’s essential to regularly check your campaigns to make sure your cost-per-click stays low.
CPC can fluctuate over time, for example, if more competitors bid on your keywords or your target audience changes.
Keeping a close eye on your cost-per-click means you can take action if it starts to drop.
Frequently asked questions about cost-per-click in Google Ads
What is CPC?
Cost-per-click, or CPC, is the amount of money you pay every time someone clicks on one of your search ads.
How can I find out what my cost-per-click is?
You can calculate your CPC by dividing the total cost of your ad campaign by the number of clicks received. So if you spend £500 on a campaign and it earns 100 clicks, your CPC would be £5.
You can see your CPC in Google Ads by going to your campaign, clicking on Reports > Performance Summary > Campaign Performance and accessing Avg. CPC.
What causes a high CPC in Google Ads?
There are several factors that can lead to a high CPC, including:
What’s the average Google Ads CPC?
According to WordStream, the average Google Ads CPC is £3.20 ($4.22).
However, the average CPC can vary even more depending on industry. For example, the legal sector, which is highly competitive and extremely profitable, has an average CPC of £6.99 ($9.21).
Of course, as we always say, the best company to benchmark your cost-per-click against is yourself. Regularly monitor your CPC, and you can quickly implement changes if it starts to increase.
Is CPC a metric that’s exclusive to Google Search Ads?
Not at all.
You can apply cost-per-click (as well as the strategies to keep it low) to any of your PPC advertising channels, from Google Shopping and paid social to Microsoft Advertising.
Keep an eye on your CPC to make sure you get the most out of Google Ads
While Google Ads is easy to get started on, it’s also easy to burn through your budget if you’re not sure what you’re doing.
Keeping track of your CPC and taking steps to optimise it will ensure your campaigns target the right customers and drive clicks to your website.
At Xigen, we specialise in PPC advertising that boosts your brand awareness and showcases your business to the right people. From auditing your existing campaigns to launching your first ads, we’re your one-stop shop for paid search, display, and social.
Get in touch with us today and take the first step towards more targeted traffic and conversions.
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