How much does Google Adwords cost? [4 Step Guide]

How much does Google Adwords cost? [4 Step Guide]

How much does Google Adwords cost? (Now Google Ads)

Is it a gold mine like they say or a money pit?

What most business owners want to know, especially those who are new to PPC advertising, is how much is Google Ads going to cost me?

After all, most marketing efforts usually come at a price.

Put simply, Google Adwords (Now known as Google Ads) can be the fastest way to generate wallet-out ready-to-buy customers, if managed correctly.

Walk into a PPC campaign without a clear strategy and you’ll soon be swimming in debt.

But you won’t have to worry about being another statistic or becoming another case study because…

We’re going to tell you everything you need to do in order to run a successful and profitable Google Adwords campaign.

First off, to set the record straight, there is no one-size-fits-all solution or answer to this question.

Pay per click advertising is as the name suggests, you pay for each visitor that clicks on your ad.

The average cost per click will vary depending on your target market and industry.

Clicks can range anywhere from a few cents all the way up to $10, and even more.

The most expensive industries have been known to reach as high as $100 per click.

That being said, the cost per click and variations in keyword costs can also vary greatly within the same industry.

This is why a well-optimised campaign is essential for success.

A well-researched PPC campaign can see an advertiser pay up to 90% less than their competitors who may be pushing a poorly run campaign.

This is where the fruit lies.

The biggest mistake business owners make is failing to understand all the pieces of  PPC advertising before diving headfirst into a campaign.

You’re destined to fail from the get-go.

But don’t let this discourage you from at least trying to make bank. You don’t need to spend millions to make millions.

Even a small monthly budget of $1,000 coupled with a bulletproof Google Ads campaign produced by a Digital Growth Marketer can bring in tremendous ROI.

This is where an experienced Google Adwords management expert can save you time, money, and a world of headaches, BUT – rest assured we’re going to answer some of the burning questions right now.

How much should I budget for Google ads?

We knew this would be your next question and it depends on what you’re advertising.

1. How to plan a Google Ads budget?

To calculate your daily budget you’ll first need to figure out what your budget will consist of.

The first step is to look at the cost of the most appropriate keywords you want to be targeting.

To begin, go to Google and start searching for the most obvious terms related to your business.

For example, if you sell swimming pools — start typing this in Google search and you should notice autocomplete suggestions, as seen below.

google-autocomplete

 

If you’re not sure or want more suggestions you can use the Google Keyword Planner and find suggestions based on your landing page or website.

This will give you a better understanding of what your prospects are searching for online.

Note: You’ll have to create a free Google Ads account in order to open this menu.

 

Open up the keyword planner, it should appear under ‘Planning’ as seen below

 

google-adwords-keyword-planner

 

It will take you to another screen, from here click on ‘discover new keywords’.

kw-planner-discover-kw

 

Click the ‘start with keywords’ tab. 

kw-planner-selection

 

You can enter the keywords here, that you chose earlier and the keyword planner will return a list of targeted keywords related to your products and services.

You can also click ‘start with a website’ and enter your URL, and the planner will generate a list of suggestions based on the information on your website.

 

Once you get the results…

In the columns to the right, you’ll notice the total search volume, bid cost (low range) and bid price (high range). The bid cost here is what you would pay for each visitor that clicks on your ad.

The cost of high volume searches may come as a shock, however, it’s important to keep in mind high search volume doesn’t necessarily guarantee your ads will convert.

This is where long-tail keyword phrases can prove to be highly profitable.

For example, ‘swimming pools Perth cost’ targets a specific intent and is more likely to generate ready-to-buy customers as opposed to targeting just ‘swimming pools’.

For the time being, ignore the bidding price, we’ll get back to that in a moment.

Create a spreadsheet with four headings and list the keywords and phrases you think are most relevant:

  • Keywords / Phrases
  • Search Volume
  • Competition
  • Bid cost (low range)
  • Bid price (high range)

Bonus tip: If you find a term that’s relevant to your business, with high search traffic — add the location of your city at the end of the search term.

Air conditioning would become ‘air conditioning sydney’

Solar panels would become ‘solar panels melbourne’ and so on…

These phrases tend to indicate ‘commercial’ search intent, or otherwise, a searcher who’s further along their buyer’s journey and is more likely to make a purchase soon so you definitely want to be targeting that traffic.

You’ll find that these phrases may be a little more expensive than the longer tail phrases, but that’s because they will have a high chance of turning into customers. An experienced CRO agency can often tell you whether it’s likely that you’ll be able to leverage these phrases to create profitable returns by maximising the conversion on the keyword.

 

Anyway, back to the spreadsheet.

To estimate the cost of each keyword you need to consider both the high range and low range to work out averages.

Now, do you remember when we mentioned how a well-optimised campaign can see advertisers pay up to 90% less than a poorly run campaign?

Well, this is where Quality Score comes in.

Based on the level of competition and quality score of phrases in your campaigns, your cost per click can vary, either favouring the lower ranges or higher.

A Google Adwords management agency’s role here is crucial, because maximising the quality score can lead to exponentially higher profits.

 

Let’s consider a scenario, my search on ‘solar panels sydney’ shows me the stats below:

 

search-kw-planner-example

 

The low range bid price is $5.65 and the high range bid price is $13.52

This can mean a number of things…

When competition is high, the top spot for the ad can cost up to $13.52

Or

If your quality score is low, you could pay up to $13.52

Alternatively

It could mean that you can advertise for this search term, but instead of being the number one position, you could be ranked in lower positions (and this is okay, because you only pay for it when you get a visitor)

Or…

If you have a well optimised ad, lots of people prefer to click on it, they land on your page, spend a bit of time and want to enquire with you…

You could pay as little as $5.65…

That’s almost 60% lower than the highest bid costs

Hang in there, later on I’m going to show you how this little piece of information can transform the way you generate sales for your business.

 

Updated: November 14, 2022
Ali Raza
invicta agency - perth Invicta Agency