How to lower your CPC on Google Ads

Here are some proven tactics, as well as dashboards to track your progress and ways to share results as they happen.

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What is cost-per-click (CPC)?

Put simply, your cost-per-click (CPC) on Google Ads is the amount you’re paying for each individual click to your advertisement.

There are a number of factors that affect your CPC, including your targeting criteria, keywords, the text of the ad, the landing page, the maximum bid you’ve set, and more.

Here are some longer-form articles you might find helpful:

More than 40 paid marketers shared the strategies that have worked for lowering their cost-per-click (CPC) on AdWords, including tips for improving your Quality Score, keyword targeting, and more.
After analyzing thousands of Datablocks, here are the most common and important AdWords metrics that Databox users are tracking.
List of Tactics
  • Increase your quality score. Google assigns a quality score to every advertisement. The three factors of quality score are ad relevance, landing page experience, and ad click-through rate (CTR).That score is multiplied by your bid to find your rank in the ad auction. The higher your quality score, the higher they’ll place your ad.
  • Create more focused landing pages. Create unique landing pages, preferably targeting a single keyword and/or subject, for new advertising campaigns. The improved relevance can increase your quality score via higher ad CTR and relevance.
  • Target keywords for intent, not volume. By targeting a more specific, long-tail search with less search volume, you’re also likely to achieve a lower cost-per-click (CPC.)
  • One match type per ad group. “The perfect campaign structure for AdWords has 1 keyword and 1 match type per ad group. This means if your keyword is ‘advertising,’ you would have 3 ad groups targeting the word ‘advertising’ – one with broad match modifier, the second as phrase match, and the last as exact match.” – Colette Nataf, Lightning AI
  • Use negative keywords. One of the best ways to drive CPC down is to tell Google which keywords you don’t want your ads to appear on. Irrelevant keywords can drive your costs up.
  • Go for second position. The first position is always the most expensive, as you’re usually competing with other brands. Instead, target the second position where your ad will still appear above the fold at a much lower cost.
How to Track CPC

When you monitor your impact as you implement your plan, you're also empowered to adapt your approach as needed in order to stay on track.

The following dashboard templates are plug-and-play and will allow you and your team to track progress toward the KPI and goal you've outlined.

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Google Ads Performance Overview

Google Ads Performance Overview

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Analyze your campaigns, ad groups, keywords and engagement metrics to improve your return on investment (ROI).

Google Ads PPC Performance

Google Ads PPC Performance

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The AdWords PPC dashboard template gives a complete view of all the fundamental ad metrics, including cost-per-click, click-through rate and impressions.

Want more options? Browse our library
Share results as they happen

Sharing results - good and bad - as things happen, allows you and your team to celebrate victories, do more of the activities that produce results, and course-correct when things aren't working.

Most importantly, it creates an environment where everyone feels in control of the company's performance next week, month, quarter, and beyond.

Set up a Scorecard and Alert in order to keep you and your team up-to-date on your progress toward the goal you selected earlier.


Track your progress toward these KPIs in real time

With Databox free, you can pull all your data into one place, set goals around specific KPIs, and track performance and discover insights in real-time.

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Recommended KPIs

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