Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, recently released their best quarterly earnings statement ever. Google amassed $27.5 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2017.
The majority of this revenue was the result of an increase in cost per click (CPC) prices.
The increase in Google’s CPC earnings should serve as a warning to all AdWords advertisers: pay attention to your ad spend!
Increases in CPC cost have the potential to wipe-out AdWords users who don’t practice diligent and efficient account management.
Use these AdWords efficiency tips to better manage your account, and avoid having your budget drained by high CPC prices.
Google’s massive advertising earnings
Google’s revenue from advertising accounted for over 87% of their third-quarter earnings. The rise in CPC prices sent Alphabet’s stock price soaring and added billions to Google’s value.
The trend of rising CPC prices is likely to continue as Google’s market share increases. Google is expected to own 80% of all search ad revenue generated in US market by 2018.
Why AdWords efficiency matters
The key to maintaining a profitable AdWords account – in the face of high CPC prices – is efficiency.
Advertisers that consistently monitor their AdWords account can stay flexible and make changes to adjust for rising overall CPC costs. In fact, if your campaigns remain profitable, you might not even notice rising CPC costs in your overall acquisition strategy.
AdWords users who run their ads on autopilot are likely to have their budget drained by increased costs. Failing to make timely adjustments to high CPC prices can result in decreased traffic, fewer conversions, and wasted ad spend.
AdWords efficiency tips
How can you remain efficient with your AdWords spend with rising CPC costs? Consider the following tips to help increase your efficiency while managing your account performance:
- Set-up your AdWords columns to make sure your conversion data is visible. Closely monitor overall conversions and your cost-per-conversion. Optimize for results, not clicks.
- Mine your search query reports. Incorporate negative keywords, and use more dialed-in match types as much as possible.
- Build out your ad extensions to gain more visibility, and call attention to your highest converting offers.
- Connect your AdWords account to your Google Analytics Account. Set up Google Tag Manager (GTM) to track events on your landing pages. Use the data GTM reports in Google Analytics to improve the user experience on your landing pages.
- Tightly match your keywords to ads, and your ads to landing pages as closely as possible to increase your ad Quality Score.
- Use the PPC Mastery Course AdWords Budget Calculator to see how changes to your CPCs will affect your ROI.
- Do routine competitive analysis. Stay current with how your competitors are positioning their ads and offers. Look for opportunities to provide searchers with a better answer than your competitors.
- Double check Google’s keyword data against other sources, and be exhaustive with your keyword research.
In a competitive market, active AdWords account management is the difference between losing money and making money.
Managing your account on a daily basis and maximizing your efficiency will allow you to continue to achieve profitable conversions, even in a higher cost environment.
What has been your experience with this change? Not a big deal? Major impact on your advertising efforts?