How to lower your CPC on Google Ads

Methodology Playbooks / Marketing > Paid Search

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.

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:

42 Paid Marketers Share Strategies for Lowering Your AdWords CPC.

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.

The 10 Most-Important Google AdWords Metrics According to Our Data.

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.

Recommended Dashboards

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

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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.

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Track your progress toward these KPIs in real time

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