Ways to reduce Cost Per Click

[bostonseo]

My main client is in a very competitive industry where the average cost per click is around $6. I should state that this is the average cpc for roughly the #2-#3 position.

My question is what works to reduce to cost per click. I've done all I know how to do:

1. Make sure the keyword is used in the ad title line and description
2. The landing pages are very relevant to each keyword
3. I have each keyword as their own campaign - I heard that helps.

I can't bid any less or my ranking will fall to say #7 or worse (and we know that if you are not the top 4-5 spots you can basically forget about getting any clicks).

If you have any ideas I'm missing, I'd love to hear them.

[venrooy]

I like to write one or two ads a day for each ad group, replacing the one or two ads a day from each ad group that has the lowest CTR.

This will help to increase your CTR which in turn will lower your CPC.

[bostonseo]

venrooy,

Thanks for your advice. I am finding the higher my click-thru, the more expensive the CPC.

For example:

On say a Tuesday I might have a keyword that has received a 9% click thru and the avg cpc was $5.25. On Wednesday the same keyword (at the same rank-position) will receive a 12.5% click thru, but now my avg cpc will go up to about $6.50.

These are terms that I have had in my account for 2+ years. I'm totally confused why, for me, higher click thru nine times out of 10 means higher avg cpc when my position has not increased?

[briggidere]

hi there,

i know you may not want to spend any more on each click, but have a think about this.

if you were to increase your max CPC for a while so you took the average 1-2 spot for a few weeks/months (depending on what your industry is/no of impressions are etc) you would increase your CTR. As your CTR has increased, so has your ad score. You may then be able to reduce the max CPC down and still maintain the 1-2 position.

it could be worth a try, if you hadn't thought about doing it.

briggidere

[bostonseo]

briggidere,

Thanks for your suggestion. I have tried to do just this, but on a number of terms it's actually impossible to move up to #1 or 2 no matter what I set as my max cpc. The other main competitors are household names have basically 'locked up' the top 2 spots. Occasionally we move up to the top spots...but it never lasts.

[hooloovoo22]

You've probably hit most of these but:

add more negatives

add all matchtypes

check your logs and add even more variations of the keyword with their own more targeted creative. Some will convert better giving you more room to play with

if it's local: have a campaign that includes the local terms (city/state), and separate campaigns for your keywords but targeted at different markets. Then tailor your creative to those campaigns. This will probably require another account - one for each region/state you want to target.

[bostonseo]

Actually since these keywords are so pricey I have them all as exact match [keyword]. Does having them as exact match push the price up? Has anyone ever tested this?

[palomar55]

Does having them as exact match push the price up? Has anyone ever tested this?

It did for one of my campaigns. My bid prices dropped by an average of 40% when I swapped [] to "".

[bostonseo]

"It did for one of my campaigns. My bid prices dropped by an average of 40% when I swapped [] to ""."

Interesting, I'll play around with that and see what happens for me.

[bobby_boy]

How did the overall clicks/impressions from broad match on the word to [] on the word compare? I have thought about trying this a number of times but have always worried about the number of clicks I'd lose.

[wildbest]

Actually, it is not a correct question. There is no way to reduce your PPC, because the cost is in direct relation with what your competitors are willing to pay. But you can do things that your competitors just do not do, or are not doing in the best possible way!

For instance, create new campaign and populate it with ad groups that have only a single keyword phrase included. Include only this in every ad group:
best widgets
"best widgets"
[best widgets]
- negative widgets
- "negative widgets"
- [negative widgets]

Attention! Sooner or later expect Google to suspend your AdWords account... giving no reason... especially if you change your budget too often... because this is creating tremendous workload on their AdWords servers... :)