Seven ways to cut Google Ads costs

With millions of daily inquiries, it’s easy to see why it pays to advertise on Google search. Google Ads is a great, versatile tool for PPC campaigns. The search engine attracts a lot of users, and many of them are actively searching for products or services. However, high competition can raise the CPC of Google Ads. Nowadays, most growing companies use PPC (Pay-per-click) ads. The most critical issue in this area is to ensure the lowest possible cost per click (CPC). This will make your campaigns profitable, which in turn will increase the always significant ROI. Let’s look at ways to lower the CPC in Google Ads campaigns and reduce the total cost of ads. How to lower CPC in Google search ads – here are seven suggestions to get you started in the right direction!

What is CPC?

Cost per click (CPC) indicates how much you pay for each click on your ad. PPC advertising platforms, such as Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, charge whenever someone clicks on an ad. The user tells the platform how much they are willing to pay to click an ad, and the platform uses an algorithm to determine where to display the ad. Ad ranking evaluates and selects ads to display in response to user queries on search engines. 

Ad ranking is based on factors such as the relevance of the ad, the predicted click-through rate and the quality of the landing page. When CPC is high, you pay more when a searcher clicks on your ad. This can mean a higher ad position and higher visibility, but it also means the budget is depleted faster.

On the other hand, when CPC is low, a lower cost-per-click is paid. This may mean a less competitive ad destination, but it means you will get more clicks for your budget. Balance is key when it comes to cost per click.

How to calculate CPC?

Calculating the cost per click (CPC) is simple. Just divide the total cost of your ad campaign by the number of clicks received:

CPC = Total amount spent / Number of clicks

What CPC should you aim for in Google Search Ads? The average cost per click in Google Search Ads is determined by various factors. These include:

1. Number of competitors: When more companies bid on a particular keyword, the average CPC is raised.
2. User search intent: A transactional query, where the user is more likely to buy, will have a higher CPC than an informational query, where the user is looking for answers to questions.
3. Industry: Some industries are naturally more competitive than others
4. Target audience: Factors such as the type of device your target audience is using and where they are located can affect the cost per click.

Quality Score: Quality score is a measure of the relevance of an ad and landing page to search engine users.

How to check the quality score?

You can check the Quality Score in your Google Ads account. Each keyword that your ads target gets a Quality Score.

1. 1. Open your Google Ads account and go to the „Campaigns”

tab.

1. Select in the menu  „Audience lists, keywords and content” , and then select the tab  „Keywords in the search network”
2. In the right corner, above the data, the option „Modify columns for keywords” is available. Once open, search for the keyword „Quality score”
3. You can search for the overall quality score as well as its individual components, i.e.:

• Landing page quality
• Predicted CTR
• Advertising accuracy

5. Confirm by clicking „Apply”

Note: You can also select historical data for the quality score; just designate a specific period and select „Modify columns for keywords”

in the menu.

• Quality score (hist.)
• Target page quality score (hist.)
• Advertising accuracy (hist.)
• Predicted CTR (hist.)

Note: If “-“ appears in a cell, it means that not enough data has yet been collected to determine the quality score.

Use exclusionary keywords

Remember to use exclusionary keywords in your Google Ads campaigns. This is important for optimizing campaign performance. By preventing irrelevant searches from triggering your ads, you can make sure that clicks come from genuinely interested potential customers, leading to a more efficient use of your advertising budget. These exclusionary keywords act as additional layers of precision, refining your campaigns and ad groups to reach the most relevant audience.

 

For instance, if you run an online store specializing in men’s hats, utilizing exclusionary keywords will help avoid displaying your ad to people searching for „women’s hats” or „children’s hats,” ultimately directing your ad to the right audience. Crafting a well-thought-out negative keyword list can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your campaigns by keeping your ad from showing up in irrelevant contexts.

 

By strategically implementing exclusionary keywords, you can expect more targeted ad displays, improved click-through rates, and, ultimately, better ROI for your advertising efforts.ng exclusionary keywords strategically, you can look forward to more targeted ad displays, improved click-through rates, and, ultimately, better ROI for your advertising efforts.

The next step in optimizing an ad campaign is to change the rate-setting strategy. Google Ads offers many different rate-setting strategies, including many automatic options.

Automatic rate-setting strategies include:

• Improved CPC
• Maximize the number of clicks
• Maximize conversions
• Target CPA

Automatic rate setting is useful for companies that don’t have time to manually optimize their Google Ads campaigns. However, these strategies can negatively impact cost-per-click because they give you less control over your budget. Additionally, automated strategies may not always align with a company’s unique goals, which can lead to overspending. If using an automated rate setting, regularly monitor your Google Ads account to ensure that your cost per click remains within an acceptable range.

Many advertisers choose a manual bidding strategy because it provides maximum control over the cost per click. This allows for precise bidding and adjusting amounts over time. Keep in mind, however, that in order to achieve top positions, you must bid high enough amounts.

Google Ads uses two key factors to determine ad positions. The first is the maximum CPC, which is the amount an advertiser is willing to pay for a click on an ad. The second factor is the quality score, which evaluates the relevance of keywords, landing pages and ads. This score significantly affects the position of ads and the cost per click. The higher the quality score, the higher the ad may be in the search results, and the cost per click may be lower.

Google assigns each keyword a quality score on a scale of one to ten. A higher quality score means that Google considers keywords to be more relevant, leading to a lower CPC.

The higher the quality score, the lower the CPC.

To improve the quality score, Google Ads takes into account the following criteria:

• Landing page quality: The more useful and relevant the landing page to which the ad leads, the better the quality score.
• Ad relevance: An assessment of how well an ad matches search intent, taking into account keywords, ad extensions and ad content.
• Predicted click-through rate (CTR): Uses historical data to predict the likelihood of users clicking on an ad.

A good quality score brings many benefits, such as higher ad visibility, better budget management, lower conversion cost and high ROI. By reducing costs and increasing the effectiveness of ads, advertisers can achieve better results and use their advertising budgets more efficiently.

Change match types

An easy way to lower CPCs on Google Ads is to focus on different types of keyword matching. Google Ads offers three main match types that affect how ads are displayed in response to user searches.

• Tight matching is the first type, where an ad is only displayed if the search term is identical or very similar to a specific keyword. This is the most precise option and can help target ads to the most relevant audience.
• Phrase matching, on the other hand, allows you to display ads in searches containing a specific phrase in a variety of contexts, giving you more flexibility than exact match.
• Approximate matching is the broadest option, which allows ads to be displayed in queries meaningfully related to a specific keyword, even if they are not identical.

Although approximate matching can attract more traffic, it often does not lead to high conversions because it can attract clicks from people who are not interested in the specific products or services offered by the advertiser. Therefore, using phrases or exact matches can help increase ad relevance and lower the cost per click.

Additionally, consider using long-tail keywords that consist of more than four words. While they may generate fewer searches, they tend to have higher conversion rates. Using such long keyword phrases can be an effective strategy to reduce competition and lower costs.

Focus on ad relevance

When trying to reduce CPC, the temptation is to lower the maximum CPC across all ads. However, this can be counterproductive. Instead, it makes sense to review ads and identify those that generate the most clicks and conversions, which in turn leads to better ROI. The key approach, then, is to make the ads more relevant.

Trelevance plays a key role in creating successful campaigns. It is one of the factors that Google takes into account when determining the Quality Score of keywords and ads, so it makes sense to focus on relevance when creating campaigns.

Targeting your ads with relevance is one of the factors that Google takes into account when determining the Quality Score of keywords and ads.

Trelevance also affects the conversion rate, as attracting people to your site who are not interested in your products or services due to inappropriate keywords can increase traffic, but also significantly increase the rejection rate, which can ultimately be detrimental to your campaign.

Use longer keywords

Long tail keywords, i.e. phrases consisting of 4 or more words, are one solution for lowering the cost of Google Ads efforts.

The advantages of using long-tail keywords are quite significant. First of all, they tend to have a much lower number of searches, which translates into less competition in terms of rates. Therefore, they are often cheaper than their more generic counterparts based on shorter keywords. What’s more, long-tail keywords are more specific and precisely tailored to users’ search intent, which increases the chance of conversion. Of course, there is also a downside to using long-tail keywords, namely, potentially fewer visitors to your site.

In addition to using long-tail keywords, you should also consider trying out new keyword variations that can benefit you with lower costs and better PPC results. Researching and experimenting with different keyword phrases can be the key to an effective advertising campaign.

Considering location, device and ad scheduling are key elements that can significantly affect the effectiveness and cost of ad campaigns, not just keyword-based ones.

Location is an important factor to examine in terms of conversion and cost. Which areas generate the best results at a correspondingly low cost per conversion, and which need to be optimized or lowered? Another important aspect is the device on which ads are displayed. Computer, tablet or cell phone – each of these devices can generate different results. The final ad schedule, i.e. determining which hours or days of the week generate the highest number of conversions, is also crucial. With the right analysis, you can adjust your budget for specific hours or days of the week to maximize the effectiveness of your campaign.

Summary

Aiming to reduce costs in Google Ads requires constant optimization and strategy adjustment. With proper keyword management, selection of the right match types, and consistent improvement in quality scores, companies can achieve better results at lower costs, maximizing the effectiveness of their ad campaigns.