How Much Does PPC Cost in 2018?

Video: Cost of Advertising with AdWords

Dan Shaffer of WebFX discusses how much you should expect to pay to advertise with Google AdWords

How does AdWords work?

With Google AdWords, you choose the keywords you want to trigger your ads. Then, you set a maximum bid for how much you’re willing to pay each time someone clicks your ad.

If your bid is among the highest for a keyword or phrase, it will appear at the top of search results with a small tag that shows it’s a paid ad.

One of the best parts of using Google AdWords is that you only pay when people click your ads. In other words, you won’t waste money trying to market to people who aren’t interested in your products or services.

While industries like legal and rehab should expect to pay upwards of $30-$40 per click for PPC, less competitive industries may only pay a few cents per click.

Since PPC targets people who are already searching terms related to your business, it will help you reach more qualified leads — people who are most likely to purchase your products or services.

However, there’s one catch. In addition to your max bid, Google considers your quality score (QS) when determining ad placement. Essentially, your quality score is a combination of your ad’s relevance to the keyword that triggered it, click through rate, and the quality of the landing page visitors see after clicking your ad.

In short, the Ad Rank formula = (your max cost per click (CPC) bid) x (your ad’s QS). For example, if your maximum bid for a keyword is $2, and you have an ad QS of 10, your Ad Rank is 20.

For a single auction, the advertiser with the top Ad Rank will win the top advertising spot.

It’s also important to note that you can end up spending less while earning a top position if your ad has a high QS. To determine the amount you pay per click, Google uses a simple formula: (Ad Rank of the ad below yours) / (Your QS) + $0.01.

To better understand this point, check out the graphic below.

In this example, you end up paying about 40 cents less per click than your max bid.

Google AdWords cost

Now, it’s easy to see that the cost of a Google AdWords campaign depends on a number of factors.

While there are certain aspects you can control — your max bid and quality of your ads — there are also elements you can’t control, like your competitors’ max bids and ad quality.

In addition, your industry and the level of competition for the keywords you want to trigger your ads will impact the cost of your PPC campaigns. While your business may pay a few cents per click on your PPC ads, businesses in more competitive fields, like the legal realm, can pay hundreds of dollars per ad click.

On average, businesses should expect to pay $1-$2 per click to advertise on the Google search network. On a monthly basis, the average small and medium-sized businesses spend between $9,000 and $10,000 on PPC. This equates to approximately $108,000 to $120,000 per year.

Typically, the most competitive PPC keywords relate to insurance, financial services, and legal industries. Combined, business in the financial and insurance industries spend the most on PPC advertising each year — a cool $1.2 billion. Retail companies come in second, with Amazon speeding more than $50 million each year on PPC advertising.

For a more in-depth look at some of Google’s most expensive keyword, check out this blog post.

How is my AdWords budget spent?

One pro of PPC advertising is that you control your budget. However, it’s important to understand how your Google AdWords budget is spent so you can get the most from your campaigns.

In Google AdWords, every campaign has its own unique settings where you can control its daily budget. When you run multiple campaigns at the same time, it’s helpful to think about which campaigns you want to have more priority. For example, campaigns related to your top-selling products or services are likely more important than campaigns designed to target top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) customers.

Then, you can break down your monthly PPC budget into daily budgets for each campaign, assigning more spend to higher priority campaigns.

If you set the max bid for an ad to $0.50 and want to earn 500 clicks per day, you would set a daily budget of $250. It’s important to note that you’ll never pay more than your max bid for an ad click. However, you may end up paying less depending on the competition and your ad’s quality score.

With Google AdWords, you can specify when you want your ads to appear. For example, a local restaurant that closes at 9 p.m. might use PPC ads to encourage people to visit their location. While they can set their ads to all day, they can also increase bids for certain hours of the week.

Similarly, you can use geotargeting to allocate more of your budget to reach people in specific geographic areas. If you’re targeting customers in a specific city or neighborhood, geotargeting is a great way to maximize your ad spend and reach more qualified leads.

In addition, if mobile traffic is particularly valuable to your business, you can use device targeting to use more of your daily budget to reach mobile users. You can even take this a step further by targeting people using specific types of mobile devices. 

Google AdWords management services

As a team, we've refined our AdWords management services to offer the very best in PPC. Our specialists also have years of experience among all of them that makes them some of the best in the industry when it comes to PPC campaign management. And because you can see our price list above, you'll know exactly what to expect in terms of PPC AdWords management costs.

Because they know how to set up a PPC campaign, how to run a PPC campaign, and how to get the best possible results, our team will also optimize your AdWords and adCenter campaigns so you receive the most relevant and quality clicks possible.

Additionally, our team members' PPC manager certifications from Google and Microsoft demonstrate the knowledge and ability they possess in using the latest AdWords and adCenter tools available. This expertise works together with our awareness of the most up-to-date best practices to provide you with a successful and lucrative PPC campaign from one of the top PPC companies in the industry.

How much does PPC retargeting cost?

With PPC, you can also use retargeting to show your ads to people who have demonstrated interest in your business and they browse other websites. Since 96% of people leave a website without making a purchase, retargeting is a great way to remind them of your business and earn more conversions.

But how much should you expect to pay for retargeting?

Just like traditional PPC ads, the cost of remarketing ads varies depending on your industry. On average, you can expect to pay $0.66-$1.23 per click on remarketing ads — slightly less than the cost of traditional ads. And it’s estimated that companies spend roughly 10 percent of their ad budgets on remarketing.

What's next?

Want to learn more about PPC advertising and how much you should expect to pay for a custom campaign?

WebFX is an award-winning PPC management company, and we know what it takes to create campaigns that drive the best possible results.

Contact us today to speak with a strategist and receive a custom quote. We look forward to helping your business grow with PPC advertising.