CPC – or cost per click – is the price you pay to Google AdWords when someone clicks on your ads.
CPCs are different depending on the keyword, ad, campaign, location etc. In general, CPC is determined by the bidding competition.
CPC = total spend / total clicks
CPC is a great way to determine campaign costs and the level your campaigns are achieving. Just like all other business costs, cost per click should be kept low.
Remember, though – it’s all relevant. If your sales price is over £5,000, the likelihood is your CPC will not be under £1. Likewise, you shouldn’t be paying more than £1 per click if your sales price is under a fiver.
Here are some certain ways to lower your AdWords cost-per-click:
Use specific keywords
The more general the keyword you choose, the higher the competition and therefore, the higher the bid. The more specific the keywords, the less competition, so the lower the bid.
Long-tail keywords are a great example of this. They will have lower search volumes and a clearly identified search intent so you won’t waste budget on irrelevant search queries.
Long-tail keywords also tend to have higher quality scores as they are highly relevant to your campaign. Increasing quality scores is another great way to lower your CPC.
Quality score
Google rates the relevance of your keywords, landing pages and ads using the quality score metric. The quality score of your ads determines how much you will pay per click.
Creating highly targeted ads that are highly relevant to people’s search queries will increase CTR which leads to an improved quality score, thereby lowering the cost per click.
Focused ad groups
Creating a closely related group of keywords in an ad group is a key factor in an AdWords campaign structure. The more relevant your keywords are to the landing pages and the ad copies, the better your quality score will be, and the lower your cost per click will be.
The best way to do this is to structure your keywords and ad groups around the different products and services you offer. You should keep each ad group close-knit and highly relevant to the ad copies and landing pages they are linked to. This will positively impact both quality score and CPC.
Choose low bid keywords
Similarly, you can choose keywords that have relatively low bids as these will lead to a lower CPC. This may or may not be possible depending on the competitiveness of the industry you are in. Less competitive keywords will lead to a lower CPC.
Another great tip is to move from automatic bidding to manual bidding, as this gives you more control over the CPC.
Negative keywords
Adding negative keywords reduces your cost per click by preventing ads being triggered by irrelevant search queries, therefore lowering your CTR (click-through rate).
It’s important to concentrate on your CTR because a low click-through rate will have a negative impact on your quality score, in turn increasing the cost per click.
Having negative keywords at campaign or ad group level ensures that the only people who see your ads are the people who are actively looking for the type of product or services you provide.
Avoiding irrelevant search queries with negative keywords helps to increase your click-through rate which then improves your quality score, in turn reducing your CPC.
Ad scheduling
Running ads throughout the day can be expensive and lower your return on investment (ROI). You may find, through experience, that people are more likely to purchase or inquire during certain time periods in the day.
Using ad scheduling, you can choose to show your ads when people are more likely to convert, saving you money and increasing your ROI. Showing ads only at certain times can reduce less valuable clicks which helps reduce the CPC.
Location targeting
Similar to ad scheduling, geotargeting helps you to focus your ads in the areas that your customers are. You can select location you want your ads to be shown in at campaign level.
You can target location by entire country, city, region or radius around a postcode. You should choose which locations to target based on where your company sells or if you have sales reps for those areas.
Location targeting ensures your ads are only displayed in areas your potential customers or clients live. This will reduce your cost per click by not wasting budget on locations that are not right for your business.
To conclude
AdWords can seem very complex, with lots of balls to juggle, but hopefully, this has clarified a few clear ways that you can help your business reduce your PPC cost per click, thus increasing your return on investment.
Here at ExtraDigital, we have dedicated experts who have years of experience in optimising AdWords PPC campaigns to improve quality scores, increase CTRs and reduce CPC, all of which work towards lowing your cost per conversion. All these are done to show the value of PPC to your business, so you see a positive ROI, and your company will really feel the benefits.
get in touch today to discuss a PPC audit or hear how our experts will be able to help manage and improve your PPC accounts.
