The most commonly measured advertising KPIs is Cost-per-click (CPC). It helps evaluate how profitable your pay-per-click campaign is.
A vital tip to remember is that by lowering your Google Ads CPC, you can increase the efficiency of your ads. This is helpful if you are in a sector with notoriously high CPCs.
However, there are also certain complications. For example, if you spend less on your clicks, you can run out of your ad budget.
On the other hand, paying less than required can result in bad quality and overall campaign performance.
This article will help you understand how to reduce your Google Ads CPC. Our tips will ensure increased Profitability without compromising lead quality or revenue.
There are plentiful strategies available that can be used for a variety of PPC campaigns.
However, our focus will be on sponsored search. This is where the marketers tend to spend most of their PPC budget.
5 Factors That Influence Your Google Ads CPC
We have listed five key variables that have the most significant influence on how much you pay per click:
1-Quality score:
It is found that a low-quality score (less than 5/10) can potentially result in a high CPC of almost 400%
2-Keywords:
Keyword bids can override any limitation that you have kept for the campaign.
3-Competition:
If there is competition for keywords, this can also increase the cost.
4-Bidding strategy:
A bidding strategy that keeps in mind the target ROAS or focuses on maximizing conversions can help you bid on high-cost keywords.
5-Campaign settings:
Campaign settings can have a significant impact on your CPC. Focus on device targeting, geography, and ad scheduling to make the most of your campaign.
Ten Ways to Lower Your Google Ads CPC
To minimize your paid search CPC in Google Ads, follow the ten tactics below. These aim to help you save money and increase the efficiency of your advertising budget.
1-Enhance the quality score.
The Quality Score is essential in an Ad campaign as it can significantly impact your CPC. If the score is low, then the CPC rises, while good scoring does the opposite.
To save your budget, you are advised to aim for a score of nine or ten. A score over five helps you reduce your CPC.
Three things play a crucial role in determining the quality of your score. These include the click-through rate prediction, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
Below, we have listed five approaches that, when improved, can increase the quality score of your Google Ads:
1-Update your keyword list:
Google prioritizes ads that are focused on the target terms. Hence, it is advised to select phrases closely related to what your targeted audience might search for.
An example of this can be terms like high-end and luxurious for brands that focus on expensive products.
2-Improve ad relevance:
It is essential to have an advertising and landing page related to the keywords utilized in the campaign. They should also address your customers’ search queries.
To make your selected keywords more prominent, optimize your URL, headlines, and product descriptions.
3-Create an excellent landing page experience:
Your landing page must include content that is related to your ad copy. Utilize similar keywords in the title of your page. This will ensure consistency in your messaging.
4-Optimise site link extensions:
Adding the most suitable site link extensions can boost your click-through rate.
5-Test your ads:
You should explore your ad copy and its landing page to test it. This will help you figure out ways to improve the overall user experience.
This is an essential step as it can affect all three variables that impact the Quality Score.
2-Appropriate selection of keywords.
It is essential to make a wise selection of keywords. You might have to pay more to get your hands on the most valuable keywords.
However, this can result in a fall in your Google Ads CPC.
For example it is a London-based shipping service. The most appropriate keywords to bid on are Search volume, estimated CPC, and competition statistics.
The more precise your location is, the more cost-per-click will be. The high cost is because you will now discover highly relevant users who will utilize your services and bring you the profits you aimed for.
Hence, we advise you to bid higher on more advantageous keywords like “shipping service London.” You can save money by bidding lower on generic phrases such as “Shipping” or “Shipping UK.”
Always look at the bigger picture when making your keyword selection and bids.
To make a marketing campaign effective, focus more on variables like return on ad investment and cost per lead rather than trying to save money by lowering the CPC.
This longer-term approach will save you from witnessing a drop in the performance of your ad campaign a few months later.
This is serious because it can also severely impact your revenue growth.
3-Try out long-tail keywords.
If you want to find low-cost but valuable keywords, then long-tail keywords are the best way to discover them. Just make sure they are relevant to your industry.
Let’s try this with an example.
The short-tail keyword “Shipping London” seems valuable but peculiar to the user’s location. However, a similar long-tail keyword can help you target a larger area.
Long-tail keywords are only searched a little, but this doesn’t mean they aren’t worth it.
It depends entirely on the intent. If the long tail keyword is a search term of high intent with high sales potential, then the CPC will also be increased.
However, you should wait to bid on it.
When choosing the most suitable keywords for your campaign, think about the following questions:
Is it relevant to my industry?
For example, avoid using such expensive terms if your shipping company does not provide international shipping.
What target audience is searching for this term?
Imagine the target audience’s intent when searching. If someone wants a shipping service, what terms can they use while searching for one? Bid on those terms.
Is the keyword worth testing?
Always keep a budget for trying out new keywords for experimentation to check their effectiveness. Save money if a keyword variant fails to produce results after eight weeks.
What type of competition is there?
If the competition is high, CPC will also be increased. Hence, always stay updated with how the competitive long-tail keywords are performing.
4-Add negative keywords.
The addition of negative keywords helps your ad not appear in irrelevant searches. For example, you want to target “Shipping London.”
Their ad aims to appear for “Shipping Services in London”; instead, it seems to be for “Shipping Jobs in London.”
Hence, when someone clicks your ad, they will land on a page that will make them realize it is not what they expected.
This will make them leave the page. As a result, the Quality Score of your ad will fall while your cost-per-click will rise.
Staying updated with the Search Terms report is essential to overcome this issue. This will help you maintain an up-to-date negative keyword list.
Use a simple strategy: see a phrase that doesn’t suit your ad and mark it as a negative.
5-Maintain Broad Matches
Broad matches can help you match your ad with more people. It does this by displaying your ad for a wide range of terms. These terms can also be irrelevant to your ad.
However, broad match keywords can help you reach a wider audience but at the cost of depleting your ad budget.
In most cases, it is better to use the exact match keywords relevant to your ad. This makes your ad visible in highly relevant searches.
However, you can dig out relevant and valuable keywords using broad and phrase-match keywords. We call this query mining.
For example, a broad match for “shipping London” will make your ad appear for “shipping services London” and “local shipping London,” both of which can produce useful leads.
However, broad matches can also make your ad pop up when irrelevant keywords of no value to your business are used.
To ensure effectiveness, you must stay aware of your broad match keywords to avoid overspending.
6-Make different ad groups for products/services that share the same value.
Different products must have separate ad groups according to their business importance. This helps in regulating and measuring CPC.
It is precisely how a single ad group per product is set up.
You can also create groups to separate inexpensive products from expensive ones. Combining products that bring a greater conversion rate is also possible.
With this strategy, you can track and alter the CPC of each ad group according to the revenue you earn from them.
7-Utilise ad extensions.
When you use ad extensions, your ad takes up extra space on the search engine results page. This can increase the chances of your ad being clicked.
Google has shown that advertisements with at least four site link extensions have a better click-through rate.
If an ad has a higher click-through rate, it has a high-quality Score, lowering CPC.
8-Plan Your Landing Pages According to Search Intent.
Your advertising and landing pages must match your target audience‘s keyword search intent.
This ensures better ad relevance and increased chances of individuals clicking your ad.
Take the following example of long tail keywords:
Do I need a service provider when shipping internationally?
Get local shipping quotes.
The first question is different from the second. Hence, they both have another search goal.
Both of them will need a unique ad along with their landing pages that can meet the keyword’s demand.
If not, the individuals will leave the page, saving your advertising budget and causing your Quality Score to fall.
9-Improved CPC Bidding (Or Minimise the Maximum Bid).
If you are using an intelligent budding approach that isn’t modified, your control over your ad spending lessens.
This is because Google will bid your ad automatically on each search, depending on your campaign objectives.
Try a manual bid approach, as this helps lower your Google Ads CPC. The best is the Enhanced Approach.
10-Lower your spending during low-performing periods.
You must select periods in which your ads will be the most profitable. Try to discover the time, day, and season for your advertisement.
You can minimize your overall CPC without compromising ad performance by utilizing your budget during peak performance periods.
In simple terms, when experiencing a lousy ad performance time, keep the budget aside to utilize it during a higher performance period.
However, you can only sit on the saved money temporarily. You need to invest it later to help you meet your goals.
Conclusion
In conclusion, reducing the cost-per-click for an effective ad campaign is essential. This article has introduced many ways your CPC can be reduced without compromising campaign effectiveness.
These tips will increase profits by eradicating unnecessary traffic and directing only relevant audiences to your landing page.
You can also try Globallyfulfill to help you save money that is wasted on ad campaigns. They will assist you in making the best decisions to ensure your ad campaigns perform as per your requirements and bring you the desired results.
