05/22/2022

The Best Ways to Lower Google Ads Cost Per Click (CPC)

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If you’re reading this article, you are likely trying to save money. You don’t want to spend your money on costly products and services. It’s also important not to spend your money on inefficient marketing strategies.

This is the digital marketing equivalent of movie theater snacks. Did you remember that small popcorn costs only twenty-five cents more than large popcorn, which comes with unlimited refills? 

Google Ads has been around for a while and you’re not seeing any decrease in the cost per click. However, your budget and results have remained the same. They will not be able to grow if they aren’t profitable. Almost every company has one.

This scenario will resonate with most marketers. There is a possibility that you have struggled in lowering the cost per click (CPC).

This article will show you how to lower your CPC, no matter where your Google Ads journey is at.

What’s CPC?

CPC is cost per click. Cost-per-click bidding is the most common method of bidding on pay-per-click platforms.

CPC can be used in many situations on Google Ads. It can be found in many places on Google Ads.

It is important to have a solid understanding of the terms if you wish to lower your CPC and increase your performance. 

  • CPC (Average Cost Per Click) – The average cost per click for your Google Ads campaign. This includes keywords, audiences, and ads.
  • Keyword max Cost per Click (Cost Per Click) – This price is what you will pay for one keyword click.
  • Ad group default CPUC – This setting is the maximum cost per click for all keywords within the ad groups. If the keyword level max CPC is changed, the default group setting will be overridden.
  • CPC (Top Page) – This indicates the amount you’ll need to place your ad on search results pages 1 and 2.
  • CPC on the First Page – This gives you an estimate of the cost to place your ad on the search results first page.     
  • CPC to the first position – This is the suggested bid for ranking number 1 in search results. The estimate is based on each keyword’s quality score.

These are just a few definitions to get you started. Visit Google’s official definitions.

Your CPC can be lowered without lowering your bids    

Let’s start this list of CPC-lowering strategies by clearing up some common misunderstandings.

First, a lower cost per click doesn’t necessarily mean you will have better metrics like cost per acquisition (CPA).

Another way to lower the cost per click is to lower your max CPC bid. This is it. 

PPC advertisers are prone to be obsessed with achieving a lower CPC. When really what they want is a lower CPA (cost per conversion/acquisition). In reality, that’s what I say. You want to make more money, spend less and have more profit. Your outrageous CPC suddenly appears to be the problem. You may be right. It is possible to jump to conclusions and reduce your bids by half.

This is a common mistake. I believe I have a 10% conversion ratio and that I pay $10 per click. I can reduce my maximum CPC from $5 to $50, which will bring my conversion cost down to $50. 

Google will determine how much you should be charged for each click. 

How does CPC work?

Calculate the cost of someone clicking on your advertisement, takes a lot.

Here’s how it works: Google divides competitor’s ad rank according to quality score and then adds 1c to it: 

I don’t like math so I’m going to keep it simple.

How does Ad Rank get determined?

Your Ad rank determines where your ad appears in search engine results in pages. Google’s algorithm to calculate ad ranks is something you need to be aware of. 

This is important information.

Google Ads and most PPC platforms have a “pay-to-play minimum”, or what you might call the industry-standard cost for each click. To rank, you must bid within the range of your competitors.

This question remains unanswered.

How to Lower your Cost Per Click in Google Ads

This article should be read to understand CPC and how it is calculated. To clarify any misconceptions or doubts regarding Google Ads’ lower cost per click,

Now you can discover proof strategies that will increase the cost per click and deliver better results.

Restructure your Account

Yes.

Wait, just a moment. You don’t have to be so meticulous, but it is possible. Some tools will make it simple to do a restructuring.

It is important to set things up correctly. Let me tell you why. SKAGs improve almost every metric. They reduce discrepancies between what users see and what they search.

Long-tail keywords can be used to identify high-performing keywords. Problem keywords will also be easier to locate.

These are the steps to create SKAGs

  • Name your ad group according to the keyword it will use
  • Each SKAG will only use one keyword, but each SKAG can have three match types.
    • [exact match]
    • “phrase match”
    • +modified +broad +match
  • You will need two ads per ad type to test the A/B test.
    • Use your keyword in the headline for your ad
    • Include your keyword in the path

Let’s say your keyword is “accident lawyer” and your ad-group name is “Accident Attorney”. The SKAG would contain the following keywords:

  • [accident attorney]
  • “accident attorney”
  • +accident +attorney

It was not so bad, I promise! The extension for Google Sheets makes it easier to create SKAGs. 

Eliminate Problem Keywords

You’ve probably heard of keywords that get clicks and sound great. There are two options.

  1. This keyword is very competitive and costly so you will need to spend a little bit. Keep your fingers crossed they turn into sales.
  2. Lower the maximum CPC keyword keywords, or pause them completely.

I’m kidding! There is another option.

3. You can use negative keywords to reduce clicks that cause your CPC to rise.

This is how it works. Access the keyword search term report to see the most expensive keywords. Add all nonsense terms and phrases to your list. 

To lower the cost of Google Ads, you need to use negative keywords 

  • Terms that are similar to other SKAGs may be considered.
  • Google thought the keyword was relevant, but it’s not…
  • It receives a lot of clicks and impressions but very few conversions

When you use SKAGs (which can be a good idea), there may be situations in which broad match modified keywords create irrelevant search terms. Add negative keywords to any remaining keyword match types.

Negative keywords can be added to your search terms report to lower the CPC. This will help you avoid spending too much on advertising.

Get Your Quality Score

Your cost per click and ad rank in Google Ads can be affected by your quality score. You can easily determine your quality score.

To view, your keyword’s quality score hovers over the status column. At the bottom of this popup are the three areas that Google uses for calculating your overall quality score.

  • Google’s way of estimating whether your ads will be clicked. This applies both to your account and all other advertisers who have used that keyword.
  • Ad relevance – This shows how relevant your ads are to keywords you use. Always include your keyword in your headlines.
  • The landing webpage experience – This is a measure of how effective landing pages are based on visitor behavior. The key factors here are bounce rate, and how long visitors spend on your site.

Improve your quality score

Have you ever tried to reduce the time spent cleaning your house? But that didn’t work. You ended up using twice the amount of Swiffer(tm) pads.

Ok, that’s fine. Ok, that’s fine.

Aren’t you sick of cleaning metaphors? To have a lower cost per click, you need to use single-keyword ads groups. 

SKAGs will cover 90% of your quality score issues. Quality score boosters can make you rockin’ and roll.

Continue to A/B Test Your Ads

Avoid testing more variables at one time. It’s difficult to pinpoint the reason for performance increases when there are too many variables.

To determine which ad is winning, you will need to do some math. It’s easy to make sure that the columns are visible.

Simply calculate the clicks and conversions of each ad and plug them into the calculator. This tells you how likely your hypothesis is to be significant. Now you can pause the losing advertisement to start a new test. You will know that you made the right decision.

A Better Landing Page Experience

The landing page experience is a key part of Google Ads’ quality score. If you want to improve your quality score and lower CPCs,

A great landing page will increase your quality score, decrease your CPC and make you more money. A well-designed landing page that converts will be more valuable than anything else in your Google Ads account.

Are you crazy? Are you a bit crazy?

An international company in the fitness and health industry approached us recently to replace their website. After spending seven years optimizing their Google Ads performance, they were still driving traffic to their homepage.

You may be wondering how this happened.

These are some tips to help you improve your landing pages.

  • Create landing pages that are specific to your business, not your homepage.
  • Make sure your landing page is in sync with your advertising message
  • Focus your headlines on the benefits, not the features
  • Mobile-friendly landing Pages are vital
  • Speed testing can help improve page load times.

While you cannot cut down your CPC by using landing pages, you can lower your CPA.

A dynamic keyword insertion is a powerful tool.

You can easily add dynamic keyword insertion on landing pages using a page builder like Unbounce.

Dynamic keyword insertion allows you to replace words and phrases on the landing page with data from URL parameters.

Log in to Google Ads. Navigate to your account settings tab.

Now you can add dynamic keywords to your landing pages. For more information, see the Unbounce documentation using dynamic content replacement.

Change your focus

Kobe Digital uses the Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) in all our activities. It is possible to dramatically improve your performance by identifying the 20% and making it a priority.

It is easy to lose sight of the most important metrics in Google Ads.

Scroll up to see the final results.

To lower your cost per click and improve your results, you need to pay more attention to 

Scheduled Bid Adjustments

When was the last time you were watching Netflix at 3 AM, and suddenly felt the urge to purchase a $5000 fireplace in your living room?

I’m not digging my fireplace metaphor. What would you do? Would you let your five-year-old sleep all night or give them time to go to bed?

You’re right, too. It’s true. This will allow you to spend less on advertising when it is most important.

Lowering bids is not enough. Ads may need to be paused at specific times or days. The bid adjustment code can be used.

Open your ad calendar tab. To find out which days or times are underperforming, you can use the filter page.

This filter can help you identify days with zero conversion but higher costs than your target CPA. Simply substitute $80 with your target CPA.

This filter will show you how many conversions exceed your CPA.

Before you set up an ad schedule or make scheduled adjustments to your bids, ensure that you have enough data. It can change depending on how much money you spend each month.

Modify your location settings

Go to your campaign settings and scroll down to the locates section. Click on the location options button in the lower left corner to go to the next screen.

A change to the default settings could make a big difference in your CPC.

Make Geographical Bid Adjustments

This article focuses on saving money. You can solve it.

“Johnny must fill his car up with gasoline. “

Johnny, if he’s anything like Kevin Durant’s friend, will be heading east.

This principle also applies to geo-bidding adjustments.

Certain countries and states may increase the cost of your clicks, causing you to lose out on the results you want. To save money, you can make negative bid adjustments or eliminate them.

Stop using automatic bidding

This is an important step to reduce your cost per click. While it may take more time from your team, it is well worth it.

Every campaign in your Google Ads account probably uses an automated bid strategy if you have spoken to a representative and followed their advice. 

You don’t have enough control over automated bidding strategies. It’s not always possible to make a sale.

Manual bidding allows you to have greater control over the cost and time of your ads. 

This doesn’t mean that you have to spend hours researching bids. The SKAGs structure allows you to set manual bids at the ad group level. Next, you can adjust your bids at the keyword level by using data.

Accelerated Delivery

Standard delivery will become the default option in your Google Ad account. This will be the default option for your Google Ad account.

Your ads will appear whenever a keyword matches the search terms.

We have found that faster delivery results in better results. However, you must be vigilant about setting the right budget for your campaigns.

Increase CPC by Keyword Expansion

Create new SKAGs to target high-performing search terms. Look for new keywords to bid on if you have keywords in your niche that are more expensive than $50 per click.

These situations might require creativity. Long-tail keywords may have lower CPCs, but higher intent levels.

We have some helpful tools for this:

Broad-match keywords can be used to find low-cost but high-quality keywords. Long-tail keywords that have high intent will often lower your cost per click and give you more money.

Register to Search Partners

Google search partner networks include websites like Amazon, AOL, and AskJeeves. You can display your ads on partner websites.

CPCs on these sites tend to be lower than Google’s.

Dynamic Search Ads

Google Dynamic SEO Ads allow you to target customers and clients by targeting more relevant searches. 

Google will select the most relevant pages for you and create a headline. However, this will reduce your quality score and make it more difficult for you to control. 

You have the option to only target certain pages of your website. It can be used to search high-intent keywords you can SKAG later.

Conclusion

Lowering your cost per click is a continuous battle. Although it is difficult to do so consistently, it will make a difference. 

Your money and time will be more efficient if you focus on the biggest needle movers. You can then start A/B testing your ads. After you have established a rhythm, and seen improvements in your ads, you can use the strategies and tools described in this article.

This article also includes tools and strategies. Please let us know if this article helped you reduce your CPC and get better results.

About the author

Kobe Digital is a unified team of performance marketing, design, and video production experts. Our mastery of these disciplines is what makes us effective. Our ability to integrate them seamlessly is what makes us unique.