How much will Google ads cost me?

Everyone is asking this question today because Facebook posts’ organic reach has declined to 5.20%. Also, Instagram’s organic reach is 20%, which is just a small relief. 

But, overall, organic reach doesn’t hold that much power anymore. And to grow your business in 2022, paid Google ads are something that you need like your next breath. 

So, here if you are new to PPC and have no clue how much Google Ads will cost, you have landed on the right post. This article will walk you through different aspects of Google Ads like—

• How much do Google Ads exactly cost?
• Which factors affect Google Ads cost?
• How do Google Ads work?
• How are Google Ads costs calculated?
• How to reduce your Google Ads cost?

So, let’s buckle up, people, as we are about to board a Google Ads cost flight…

How Much Do Google Ads Cost?

To be honest, there’s no exact cost to run Google Ads. There are so many different variables contributing to a Google Ads cost that no one can predict the exact cost. 

Unless you define all your Google Ads variables, you can’t find the exact cost to run paid ads on Google. So, let’s go through each Google Ads cost contributing factor in detail. 

Industry 

The industry is one of the main factors that determine your cost per click (CPC) on Google Ads. Every industry has a different CPC rate, so you have to first check your industry rates and then calculate Google Ads. 

As per the Wordstream Google AdWords Industry Benchmarks for 2020, AdWords CPC across all industries is $2.67 on the search network and $0.63 on the display network. 

Source 

There’s no surprise that Google CPC rates are a bit higher. But “Lawyers” and “Attorney” are the top 10 most expensive keywords on Google. The legal industry is the costliest industry to run Google Ads for $6.75. 

So, if you are a lawyer or legal consultant, you have to spend big bucks on Google Ads to grow your business. That’s because lawyers charge high fees, so Google makes them shed a few bucks on ads. It’s all fair. 

In contrast, eCommerce platforms have to only pay $1.16 to run Google Ads due to heavy competition in the industry. 

All in all, your industry plays a significant role in determining your Google Ads cost. 

Geographical Location 

The geographic location of your targeted audience also adds up to your Google Ads costing. Mostly, countries with high living expenses have higher Google CPC. 

For example, the cost per click in the United States was $1.19 in 2020. On the contrary, Switzerland had $0.92 CPC at the same time. That’s simply because the cost of living is higher in the USA than in Switzerland. 

The cost is further influenced by the areas and industry. Running an ad in metropolitan cities will be more expensive than B tier or C tier cities globally. 

Also, the industry-wise Google keywords cost will change as per the location. For instance, the legal industry has a high CPC worldwide, but it ranks number three in the USA. The insurance sector wins in the USA. 

Source 

Device Type

On which device you plan to run Google Ads also impacts its cost. The mobile CPC rate is mostly cheaper than the desktop, as you can see in this image. 

Source 

As you can see, the average mobile CPC for a digital ad was $0.42, and a single desktop click cost $0.73 in 2019.  

Trends

Obviously, trending Google ad keywords will cost you more. This phenomenon is similar to traditional advertising, where publishing ads in popular newspapers or magazines will cost you higher. 

For example, during the pandemic, many industries have seen positive CPC growth and some negative. The apparel industry saw a huge increase because people started shopping online more compared to pre-COVID-19 time. 

Source 

Similarly, due to the global travel restrictions, people less preferred to travel these days, so the travel and tourism industry CPC went down. 

Source 

In short, running ads on trending keywords will cost you higher compared to non-trending keywords. 

Additional Costs

Besides these common Google Ads cost factors, many other costs impact your digital ad budget, such as:

• PPC Agency: To plan, monitor, and analyze your Google Ads, you need to hire a PPC agency. And this cost is not included in your Google Ads cost; you have to pay extra for service costs that vary from company to company. 
• PPC Management Software: Google Keywords Planner and Ads are free to use. But if you want to effectively manage your multiple ad campaigns, you might have to invest in other paid tools like WordStream, Shape, or Acquisio. 
• Ad Schedule: For how many hours you want to run Google Ads also impact its cost. Ideally, run ads for the time frame when your business is open, like 9 to 5. 
• Customer Cycle: The longer your customers reach the final decision-making process, the higher your CPC will be. 

How Do Google Ads Work?

As you have seen, calculating Google Ads cost isn’t at all an easy job. This is because there are so many factors that constantly change Google’s CPC rate. Thus, you should understand how Google Ads works to better calculate its cost. 

Google Ads functions like an auction system. 

How so? 

Well, let’s imagine you searched for the “best laptop” in the Google search bar. Now, Google will search if your query contains the keywords on which advertisers are bidding currently. 

If the advertisers are bidding on your query-based keywords, the auction begins. Google will next check each contender ads’ Ad Rank and determine where each ad will be placed in the paid results. For example, look at this search result for the “laptop” key phrase:

Here Dell’s ad is ranked above the Amazon ad because its Ad Rank is better. 

Google calculates Ad Rank for each ad by multiplying maximum bid to Quality Score. 

A maximum bid is the highest amount you are willing to pay for the click per cost to Google. 

Quality Score is a bit complex term for which Google considers many things, such as:

• Expected clickthrough rate (CTR): It is a projection that your ad will be clicked when shown.
• Ad relevance: It shows how closely your ad matches the user’s keywords intent. 
• Landing page experience: How much value your landing page offers to the users who click on it. 

How to Calculate Google Ads Cost?

As you now know how Google Ads work, you are ready to calculate the cost for each Google Ads campaign. Here’s the simple Google Ads cost formula:

Ad Rank x Quality Score + $0.01 = Ad Price

Source 

If you observe the image, you will notice that Advertiser 1 had spent less than Advertiser 4 and still had a higher position. And that is the magic of Quality Score, marketers. 

In a nutshell, if your ad’s quality isn’t up to the mark, no matter how much you spend on Google Ads, you will get no results. 

Therefore, you should focus on your ad relevance, user-friendliness, and keyword structure to improve your ad’s Quality Score without increasing your CPC. 

And this takes us to the final topic, “how to gain maximum ROI from your minimal Google Ads budget?”

Tips to Audit your Google Ads Budget 

Are your Google Ads campaigns draining out your bank account? Then, you don’t need to cut your Google Ads efforts. Instead, you simply need to audit your Google Ads budget and do some cost-cutting, such as:

Analysis your keywords 

First of all, take a look at your keywords report and find underperforming keywords. 

This way, you can allocate your money to the keywords that actually bring in sales. 

Google Keywords Planner can help you arrange the keywords by conversion costs. 

From here, you can observe the keywords that offer minimum and maximum conversions. So, you can use your Google Ads budget to target the high ROI keywords. 

Reduce your ad time 

As we all know, time is money. Google Ads also believes in this. So, if you are spending ten hours on ads, you can reduce it to half and free up tons of room in your budget. 

Suppose you run Google ads for your bakery, which is only open from 8 am to 5 pm. So, you should run ads for those hours only when your bakery is open. There’s no need to run an ad 24 hours when your business is only open for 9 hours. 

Reshuffle your budget 

Another solid way to generate maximum ROI from your Google Ads budget is to reshuffle your ad budget. 

If you are running ads on Facebook, Instagram, or other platforms simultaneously, analyze which platform offers you the maximum results. 

And then, simply spend most of your ad budget on that platform. 

This trick applies to all advertising platforms, not only Google Ads. 

Reduce spending on SaaS tools

Advertisers use numerous tools today to run digital ad campaigns, such as: 

• Keyword research tools 
• Performance monitoring tools 
• Social scheduling software, etc. 

In short, today, marketers use software for everything. Some of the popular marketing tools are Mailshake, Slack, Moz, MonsterInsights, and many more. 

Now, if you want to free up your budget, you can let go of non-essential tools or substitute them for free alternatives. Even if you free $50 in your budget, it is sufficient for Google Ads to bring some leads your way. 

Keep a Close Eye on Google Ads Cost

When exploring Google Ads like a platform, it is important to keep an eye on the money. 

With one wrong move, you can exhaust all your advertising budget in the blink of your eye. 

Therefore, calculate your Google Ads cost before launching an ad campaign. Further, you can allocate your budget to the high-performing keywords, locations and hire a professional PPC agency to help you out. 

All in all, first test Google Ads with a small budget and then gradually increase your spending. 

That’s it for now in this post! Now the floor is all yours. Create your Google Ads campaign and share your experience with us in the comments.

Search advertising is booming. Big and small brands are investing in search engine ads for boosting sales and driving traffic.

It’s important that you know how to improve PPC or pay-per-click campaigns if you want to supercharge your lead generation.

Organic search marketing coupled with search ads can skyrocket your revenues within a short time.

Do you know businesses receive an average of $2 on every $1 spent on Google Ads?

When you look at the stats, it might seem profitable. You may feel like giving this a try (if you haven’t yet).

But hold up!

Search ads campaigns are not that simple. You need to learn how to get started. You need to understand how to improve PPC as you move ahead.

A PPC campaign without the proper strategy and foundation wouldn’t last long. You might even run into a loss.

So, you need to cook up a solid cost-per-click strategy first. It is the key to executing, planning, and optimizing your campaigns.

But before we get into the whole strategy stuff, let’s understand a bit about these ads.

What is PPC?

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet marketing model where the advertisers have to pay every time someone clicks their ads.

It is more like buying the visits on your website.

With more and more businesses making their online presence, it has become difficult to get ranked organically. Specially, small businesses that don’t have the time to wait for SEO strategies to work out.

So, they turn towards these ads.

The majority of the businesses go for search engine advertising.

Businesses mostly go for Google as it has 92.41% of the total global market share. However, Bing and Yahoo are also in line. But if your goal is to double your profits quickly, then selecting Google will be the right choice.

On Google, these advertising work on a bidding system. As an advertiser, you have to bid for the ad placement on the Google search page when someone searches a keyword.

For example, when you search the keyword “marketing automation software” you will find an ad by MoEngage on the search engine page.

Source: Google

Whenever someone clicks on this ad link on the SERP, MoEngage has to pay a nominal fee to Google.

But here is the thing, your fee will be nominal only when you do it correctly. If your website visitor doesn’t make any purchase through your website, then it’s a loss for you.

So, if you pay $3 for every click, you must earn 300 dollars from the sale too.

A lot goes into designing a successful advertising campaign. You have to use top-notch techniques, from researching keywords to organizing your campaigns. You will also have to work on your landing pages, so your visitors convert.

It is crucial from your campaign’s perspective, but search engines reward those who create relevant campaigns. They generally charge less on ad clicks as a reward.

You can learn how to create these ads easily. But you must read “how to improve PPC” blogs to get the most out of your campaigns.

Now, let’s focus on a few methods you can use to improve PPC campaigns.

1. Identify and Define your Goal

Every campaign needs a measurable and definite goal. It is the only way you can work towards optimizing the campaign.

This goal will become the backbone of the complete optimization process. It will help you create an accurate roadmap for PPC advertising.

Here are a few examples that will give you some idea:

• The campaign should get you 15 new leads per month using the website’s contact form.
• Have the cost per conversion less than $25 each.
• Track someone when he or she clicks on the ad and finishes with the lead form.
• Average visitors through PPC should spend more time on the website.
• Get more leads per keyword compared to organic search.

And more.

In this way, you can decide your PPC goal. It will be unique for every business.

2. Add High Performing Keywords

Keywords are the essentials of a good PPC campaign. If you can get the keywords right, you will surely achieve your goals.

If you already have an organic website SEO campaign running, you can check and verify the keywords.

Find the keywords that are helping your website gain the most clicks.

You can learn this through Google Analytics.

If this is the first time your website is live on Google, you can use the Google Keyword Planner. This tool is available on Google Ads.

With this planner, you can find out the high-performing keywords. Select the keywords that align with your target audience.

However, if you want to improve your PPC campaign, you will have to keep tweaking your keywords. Don’t stick to a single keyword for long. Always try to use new keywords and experiment.

Introducing new keywords will help you find the optimal keyword, and you can stick to that.

3. Optimize your Keyword Bids

After you find out your high-performing keywords, you have to create a list of negative keywords. This list will contain the keywords that you don’t want your ads to show up for. The next thing you have to focus on is bid optimization.

You’ll get a few bidding options to improve your campaign. However, what you’ll select will depend on your strategy and goal. So, it’s likely to vary from one campaign to another.

You have to set your budget before you get into bid management settings. Google Ad has several bid settings to chose from. The two basic ones are – manual bidding and automatic bidding.

Automatic bidding

If you are a newbie, I would suggest you go for this. When you use this option you are giving Google the driver’s wheel. Google Ads will adjust your CPCs based on where you are likely to get the most clicks.

When you opt for automatic bidding, you get different bid strategy settings.

Source: Google Ads Help

You can select these according to your goals.

When you have got the hang of the bidding system, you can start using manual bidding.

Manual bidding

When you are using this bidding method, you have the freedom to select your maximum cost-per-click (CPC). When you select this option, you have to start by setting your maximum CPC bid for your ad group.

However, you can also set the bid for individual placements or keywords. Let’s assume you have discovered a set of keywords that are bringing you more profit. With manual bidding, you can allocate your maximum ad budget to these keywords.

4. Schedule Time Wisely

As a marketer, you must know that showing ads at the right time can do the trick.

And Google Ads also knows that.

Your target audience gets active at a particular time. So, you can set the right ad at the right time using the schedule.

Suppose your customers are mostly business people, you might want to put the ad between 9-5. They will be on their systems specifically during these hours.

So, you can reach them easily.

Source: E2M

However, it is not that simple! When you are starting out or somewhere in between, you might want to run your ads 24/7.

Without it, you can only assume that your ads will work at certain times. However, if you run it 24/7, you will find the exact timings when your target customers will be clicking.

Try to run it for a longer duration, even if it costs more.

Once you have found out the correct timings, you can bid accordingly.

5. Plan Your Target Locations Carefully

Targeting location plays an essential role in making conversions. Google Ads knows whom to show according to the individual’s IP address or GPS location.

So, you can select the location according to your business. Let’s say you have a bread shop, then you might want to target customers living near your shop.

If your business is selling products nationally, you’ll have to select the whole country. However, it won’t be suitable for your business because the entire country may not be interested in your product.

You need to do market research to segregate your audience and find out the exact locations and interests. Then you have to select the same to reduce the radiuses around the location for ads.

Source: E2M

You should definitely strategize your location. But playing safe is not always the way to do marketing. Don’t be scared about expanding the target areas.

Perhaps you’ll find a new market for your business.

How to Improve PPC FAQ:-

Q1. How to improve PPC performance?

A. Here are a few techniques:

Refine your goal

• Use high-performance keywords
• Optimize the keyword quality
• Segregate negative keywords in a list
• Prepare compelling ad copy
• Use remarketing options
• Use ad extensions
• Optimize content for mobile users.

Q2. What makes a good PPC campaign?

A. You can judge your PPC campaign if it’s helping you achieve your goals. So, for example, your goal is to get ten leads per month. And you are getting about 5, then your PPC campaign is good.

Q3. How do I get my CPC down?

A. Here are a few ways to lower CPC:

• Use new keyword variants.
• Try to improve the quality score.
• Adjust locations, ad schedule, and devices.

Q4. What is PPC optimization?

A. Pay-per-click optimization is a process of analyzing and improving PPC campaigns. You can do it by updating landing pages, changing keyword bids, and re-designing ad copy.

Q5. How do I learn PPC advertising?

A. You can learn PPC advertising in two ways:

• By practically using it and learning by experience.
• By going for online courses on PPC.

Ready To Improve PPC Campaign for your Business?

Pay-per-click advertising may seem like a quick way to make conversions, but it takes planning and strategies. It is a short-cut way to increase your leads if you aren’t getting any organically.

However, many businesses use a combo of both to get all the top places on Google SERP. Getting organically ranked requires a good knowledge of SEO. However, PPC ads require bid optimization strategies.

You’ll have to bid for the right keywords, select location and time wisely, and improve your landing page. Landing pages must align with the campaign if your goal is to get more leads.

So, experiment with these methods and let us know if you find them useful.