5 Ways to Lower Your CPC for Google Ads

Google Ads is a great way to reach people looking for your products or services. But if you’re not careful, your bids will quickly escalate, and you’ll pay more than you bargained for. 

Luckily, there are a few things you can do to lower your cost per click (CPC). This helps keep costs under control and ensures that your ads don’t get bumped off the first page of results because of high bidding costs.

Make sure your ad budget is sufficient.

First, you need to consider how much money you want to spend on your ads. You should have a budget that’s at least equal to the average CPC of the terms you are going for so that Google doesn’t underbid and you lose out on clicks. But if you’re a new advertiser, start with less than that—you can constantly adjust it as necessary. 

Once you know how much you will spend each day or week, set up daily or weekly budgets accordingly. Google Ads will be able to estimate how much activity you can expect based on your budget and your chosen keywords. This will give you a baseline until you have firm data and get you started on the right path to lower your CPC.

Adjust your bids to take advantage of premium positions

To lower your CPC, one of the first things you should do is take advantage of the auction. The ad auction allows you to bid on keywords based on your terms rather than Google’s. This means you can bid higher on more keywords you know are more likely to convert and lower on those that are less likely to convert but still provide traffic.

Google Ads bidding

Google Ads lets you adjust bids manually. There are various ways to do this so they’re more competitive in the auction yet still profitable for your business. For example:

• You can use negative keywords so that ads aren’t shown for searches that aren’t relevant or likely to result in sales or leads (or both). For example, if someone types “I want an apple” into Google Search but doesn’t want fruit, rather than showing them ads for apples, we’ll exclude those searches from our ad group’s targeting lists by adding “fruit” as a negative keyword for those searches. 
• You can use automated bidding strategies such as Target CPA or Maximize Conversions, which optimize bids based on how much money each click could earn over time. Then, you can automatically adjust these bids accordingly throughout each day. 

Use the Google Keyword Planner 

Use the keyword planner to find good keywords for which you have a chance of showing up but are not so competitive that bidding on them is prohibitively expensive.

The first step in using the Google Keyword Planner is to figure out what keywords are relevant to your business. A good place to start is with a list of potential topics that you want to focus on or a list of key phrases that come up in conversations with customers (e.g., “How do I find a financial advisor?”).

Once you have some keywords, add them to the Keyword Planner and run them against Google’s bidding suggestions. The tool will show how many people are searching for those terms and estimate the cost per click if you bid on them at different price points.

The other way to use this tool is to find low competition/high intent keywords that aren’t too expensive but still have enough traffic volume that they could be worth advertising on. This can help ensure you’re also targeting new users who may not know about your business yet!

Focus on optimising your landing page and increasing conversions.

If your landing page is not optimised, your ads will likely not perform well. Optimising your landing page experience means ensuring it is relevant to the Google Ads keywords you are bidding on and easy for users to understand and navigate. In addition, make sure it’s mobile-friendly. Users should see the same content no matter what device they use (mobile phones, tablets, etc.).

To improve the conversion rate on your landing page, try using a call-to-action (CTA). A strong headline can also help convince people to convert. Use bullet points and images as much as possible to ensure visitors know precisely what they get when they click through an ad.

Be specific with your keywords.

One of the best ways to lower your CPC is by being specific with your keywords. This can result in a higher quality score and help avoid unnecessary words in your ad text. For example, don’t just use “men’s shirt” as a keyword if you sell men’s shirts. It’s too broad, and people searching for that term may not be ready to buy it immediately. Instead, try using more specific keywords such as:

• Men’s cotton button-down shirt
• Men’s grey long sleeve casual T-shirt

This makes your ads more relevant to the right people at the right time and helps avoid wasted money.

Lower your CPC. It’s all about research and hard work.

You’ll need to focus on research and do the hard work to lower your CPC. The first step to lowering your ads’ cost is to do keyword research. This way, you know what keywords are costing you the most money and which ones are bringing in the best ROI.

Use negative keywords once you have a good idea of what keywords are costing you money. These will exclude high-paying keywords from your campaign and prevent them from being shown.

Also, consider using a bid modifier in conjunction with these other strategies. This helps ensure your ads reach the right audience.

In summary

The most important thing to remember is that Google Ads CPC is not something to worry about. It’s just part of the equation and shouldn’t be your primary concern when running a campaign. Instead, focus on optimising your keywords and post-click landing page to be relevant, compelling, and offer an excellent user experience. Track these metrics closely to make informed decisions about how much money or time should be spent on any keyword.

Alternatively, check out our PPC Talent Marketplace if you hire a new PPC team.