Work out average cost per click from spend and clicks, see clicks per $1,000, and understand what drives cost per click up or down.
Cost per click is what you paid, averaged across every click in the period. Your bid is the ceiling, not the price.
In a second-price-style auction the amount you pay is determined by the ad ranked immediately below you, not by your own bid. That is why raising a maximum bid does not raise cost proportionally, and why improving relevance lowers cost without touching the bid at all.
On Google Search, Ad Rank combines your bid with expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Improve the second group and you hold position at a lower price. This is not a marginal effect – the difference between a Quality Score of 4 and 8 can be 40 percent of cost.
Beyond relevance: auction density in the vertical, keyword intent (transactional terms cost several times what informational ones do), device, location, time of day, and match type. Broad match with smart bidding will find expensive queries that exact match never would.
| Vertical | Search CPC |
|---|---|
| Legal services | $15–120 |
| Insurance | $15–60 |
| Home services, emergency | $8–45 |
| B2B SaaS | $5–25 |
| Ecommerce, non-brand | $0.40–2.50 |
| Brand terms, any vertical | $0.10–1.50 |
CPC on its own decides nothing.
CPC on its own decides nothing. What matters is value per click – conversion rate multiplied by the value of a conversion. A $12 click that converts at 8 percent on a $400 order is far better business than a $0.60 click that converts at 0.4 percent on a $40 order.