How Much Do Google Ads Cost? – Technologist

When people search for keywords on the internet, they are looking for either information or products. Search engine optimization (SEO) efforts target informational searches. They are often effective for driving organic traffic to your website, but Google ads are ideal for promoting items for transactional searches.

How much do Google ads cost, and how can you leverage them for transactional web searches? Ads are usually more costly than traditional SEO in the long run, so if you want to use them to boost sales, you need to know how much money to budget for advertising.

How Much Does It Cost To Put an Ad on Google?

The average cost of a Google ad is $3.53. However, prices vary widely depending on the industry a company is in and how much work it puts into SEO.

Your industry significantly impacts the cost per click (CPC) and cost per lead (CPL). Because companies only pay for a Google ad when a consumer clicks on it, these two factors are the driving forces when developing an advertising budget. An industry that often has more profitable sales usually has a higher CPC and CPL than those with a higher number of sales that are lower in cost.

For example, an art supply company likely pays a low CPC because it generates many sales at an affordable price point. A company in the professional services industry stands to earn up to $10,000 from a single customer, so the CPC is often significantly higher, with the average hovering at just over $9.

Is $500 Enough for Google Ads?

Yes. $500 can be a good budget for small businesses with a niche vertical and a low CPC; however, companies that sell more expensive products and have a national presence may need to put more money into their advertising budget. You must ask how much Google ads are to know if you can afford this advertising strategy. Understanding how Google determines CPC can help you decide if a $500 budget is enough for your needs.

When internet users search for a transactional keyword, they trigger an auction. Google then compares all qualifying ads that target the same keyword and assigns each of them a quality score. Google analyzes the landing page associated with each ad. This is where a good SEO strategy can boost your ad results. To determine a quality score, Google takes the landing page results and compares them to the expected click-through rate based on past performance and assigns the ad a score between 1 and 10.

Next, Google takes your quality score and multiplies that number by the top amount you are willing to spend for each click, which search engines call your maximum bid. The resulting number is your ad rank. This determines where your ad appears on search engine results pages (SERPS).

Finally, Google determines your exact CPC by taking the ad rank of the listing directly below yours and dividing it by your quality score, then adding one cent to that number. The resulting CPC is what you pay every time a customer clicks on the ad. The amount is usually significantly lower than your maximum bid, so ads can be a cost-effective advertising tool if you also work on SEO to boost your quality score.