The desire to reduce the cost of a click and not to sag in the number of applications, regardless of the funds allocated for the campaign, is natural for any advertiser. But the statistics are disappointing – 9 out of 10 advertisers do not optimize campaigns, so almost half of the money allocated for online marketing is wasted.
Nevertheless, every second person thinks about how to reduce the cost per click in Google Ads and at the same time not lose targeted traffic. It sounds tempting: increase sales and spend less on customer acquisition.
Maybe there is a way to increase the number of transactions without changing the budget for marketing activities?
Contextual advertising systems work on the principle of an auction. The cost of a click is set not only based on the rates set by the advertiser. Other important aspects are also taken into account:
Competitor ad quality scores
Click rate cap;
The rating of the ad itself.
And these parameters can be influenced if the task is to reduce the cost of a click.
Important! Improving the quality and relevance of your ads gives you the opportunity to increase your sales by achieving the highest conversions without changing the amount of money spent.
Ways to reduce the cost per click in contextual advertising
There are two approaches to reduce the cost per click in contextual advertising. According to the first, it is necessary to limit the maximum possible rate for the transition. The second approach is based on the qualitative improvement of ads and the entire campaign as a whole, limiting ineffective impressions, increasing relevance, working on the landing page and semantics.
The first approach leads to a reduction in the cost of the transition and a simultaneous loss in the number of clicks. Forced bid caps automatically lower ad positions in the ad unit.
Pay attention! With significant restrictions, only a few users will see your offer, that is, the audience coverage will decrease, therefore, the number of visits of potential customers to the site will decrease.
The second approach looks more attractive. If you follow the recommendations – expand the semantics, use negative keywords, work on creating good headlines, then the ad will be positioned in the ad units on the very first lines. At the same time, the cost of the transition will decrease due to a qualitative improvement in the rating, which will allow you to become a winner in the advertising auction more often.
How to reduce the cost per click in Google Ads?
If the task is to reduce the cost per click in Google Ads, then how to do it correctly so as not to lose traffic? It is necessary to follow the recommendations described below, some of which are simple, and some require regular analysis and control.
1. Use negative keywords
These words restrict impressions for queries that bring irrelevant visitors to the site. For a selling resource, such a word, for example, will be “free”. Excluding them from the campaign helps to reduce the budget in general, and not just lower the average cost per click.
The use of negative keywords has a positive effect on the CTR and ad relevance to the key query due to the fact that the advertising offer is seen by a higher quality audience. The absence of inappropriate visits helps to save money.
2. Separate the search network and display networks
Display impressions are offered by default when creating any AdWords campaign. By accepting this setting, the advertiser receives a stream of irrelevant impressions and pays funds from his advertising budget for the click of each such user.
The right strategy looks different. It is better to create different campaigns: one for the context, and the other for the media network. The purpose of the existence of each network is different. They cover different kinds of sites with different audiences. The display network mainly displays image ads, the search network is designed to display text ads at the request of users. Separating campaigns will save your budget.
3. Use geotargeting
Limit impressions only to the territory where the vast majority of the company’s customers are concentrated. You can make such a setting by selecting a country, region, locality, district, or by specifying an area on the map. For large cities, it is advisable to choose on the map the radius around the company’s office or those areas from which the conversion is most often made.
Important! Geo-targeting allows you to show ads only where potential customers are located. Its use has a positive effect on CTR and Quality Scores, which inevitably reduces the cost of a click.
4. Use long search terms
Ad relevancy is calculated for each keyword, so the cost per click is likely to be different for different queries. The popularity of high-frequency phrases due to their use by large corporations and brands leads to serious competition.
Exit – when creating a campaign, look for mid- and low-frequency queries. The competition for them is lower, because the cost per click will be lower. An additional effect is also connected with the fact that site visitors are better converted for such phrases. After all, the more detailed the request, the more conscious the buyer, the more ready he is to make a deal. This reduces the cost of a lead.
5. Keep your ad and landing page relevant
Solving the problem is simple – you need to select one phrase for each ad group. Ideally, this phrase should be present in the text of the ad, and in the title, and on the landing page. This affects the quality score, which means that less money is needed to increase the positions of ads.
6. Experiment with time targeting
Estimate at what time there are more visits to the site, and set impressions for these intervals of the day. The conversion will be higher, which will have a positive impact on Quality Scores.
The opposite strategy of impressions at unpopular times will help to collect the traffic that competitors miss by turning off advertising on holidays, weekends or at night. The cost of attracting customers will decrease due to reduced competition.
7. Improve the quality of your landing page
Landing page quality has a part to play on relevancy. It is not enough to add keywords to it. Also required:
Optimize it for different types of devices;
Get rid of questionable SEO practices, if any;
Control page loading speed;
Fix bugs in code;
Supplement the page with interesting information not only for search robots, but also for users.
In fact, it is necessary to perform the same actions as for a good ranking of a resource in search engines, and then the system will highly appreciate its quality.
8. Add ad extensions
Additional extensions help to make the offer more noticeable. Quick links, contact information, structured data, etc. can serve as such content. This approach distinguishes advertising from competitors. Ads are clicked more often, which increases CTR and improves rankings.
9. Use different rates for different devices
Visitors using different devices are converted differently. The growth of mobile traffic has led to an increase in the cost of a click from mobile gadgets. By creating different campaigns for different devices, you can save the budget on clicks from a PC (by setting lower bids for its users).
10. Add dynamic ads to your campaign
Google’s Dynamic Ads technology tailors ads to specific users to increase relevancy. And since it is one of the indicators of quality, the cost of the transition is reduced.
11. Conduct A/B tests
To conduct such testing, each group must contain two ads with the same keywords in the title and lead to one page. Only the extensions and texts of these ads are changed.
Analyzing the results of ad impressions will help answer the question of how to reduce the cost per click in Google AdWords. It is necessary to evaluate which option has the best CTR and conversion, and disable the ineffective one. Instead of a disabled ad, create a new one and retest. This principle of action leads to an increase in traffic and relevance. As a result, the cost per click decreases.
What is the effect of lowering Google AdWords CPC?
The application of all the above recommendations not only improves the rating of the advertising campaign, but also creates a better offer for the consumer.
New customers close deals and increase the overall profitability of the business. If the tips on how to reduce the rate per click in contextual advertising are applied correctly, then this has a positive effect on the overall account rating, Google Ads begins to regard your company as a reliable partner and advertising costs become lower.
