Question

Explosion of CPC , why ⁉ Hey guys, I've increase my AdWords budget (from around 15$ daily to 60$ daily so x4) last week and my CPC exploded from 0. 13$ to 0. 18$ (+43% increase). What could explain this, knowing that nothing has changed in my campaigns ?  

Answer 1

If you are running an automated strategy it's targeting different traffic now. High cpc is not a bad thing, if the traffic is converting better "up there"

Comments

Yep automated (maximise conversion). It's not specially converting better than before :/

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@oof if you haven't set a cpa or roas limit it will just spend. Max conversion (at what ever the cost). If you have set a limit, it needs time to learn. If you have enough data, it will come back.  

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@oof you're using a bid strategy that is defined by budget. Anytime you make budget changes you will impact performance. When you were at the lower budget, how much impression share were you getting? How much was list due to budget?  

Answer 2

That's because the more you want to appear, the more a click will cost. For example, having 20% impression share, a click might cost you 10 cents. If you want to compete harder and for example, appear 80% of the time, a click might cost you double or more

Comments

So it is inherent to AdWords that the more you invest, the more it will cost I guess ?  

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The more you want to appear for a specific keyword, the more you'll pay. If you're looking to have low cpc's, try adding more (relevant) keywords and bid low. Aim for an impression share of 10-30% on each, you'll have the lowest cpc's. Depends on the industry you're in of course: low cpc's might also indicate a low-converting keyword. Also, your competitor might have data you don't, and bid higher on specific audiences that convert better. You might miss out on those if you bid low. In the end, of course, if you keep overthinking this, you might as well quit advertising, so in short: testing, testing and testing :) test low bids, test high bids, test different keywords and invest more where it works

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You're welcome. Good luck!  

Answer 3

Use manual cpc

Comments

Not a big fan as my automated strategy worked well before

Answer 4

There's less searches in some industries due to the pandemic. Auto bidding has less quality inventory so I believe it's bidding up more aggressively to get conversions. This is my theory for recent CPC rises.  

Comments

Thanks for the theory ;)

Answer 5

Where do you get . 13 cent clicks these days? Is this search or shopping? I can see that with display or discovery

Comments

I guess it depends on the industry and the competition. 0. 13€ (so more like 0, 15$ I'd say) was my average CPC for all my campaigns (5 search campaign without GDN & 1 shopping)