Cost-effective tactics for navigating CPC surges

Alex Hogan 'Associate Director of Marketing' at PushON presents his tips and tactics for cost-effective navigation of CPC surges at Brighton SEO April 2024.

Alex talks about what CPC surges are, what caused them, and offers some tips and tactics to reduce the impact on your advertising budget.

1. Cost-effective tactics for navigating CPC surges Alex Hogan PushON @PushON

2. What are CPC Surges? “Increases in CPC over a period time which result in the cost of traffic via Google Ads, or other paid platforms, to rise”

3. The cause of CPC surges “This can happen due to a variety of external factors like change in competition , ad position in line with campaign goals, and seasonality ”

4. No Control Some Control Full Control Increase Competition & Seasonality Increased Cost More Advertisers Increased Personalisation & Automation Automation Strategies Pmax Strategies Poor Management & Landing Pages Minimal Best Practice Low Quality Scores Level of Control The Cause Examples

5. What is the challenge (Micro)? Cost of traffic increases which may mean ROAS drops 1 2 3 Campaigns hit daily budgets faster impacting visibility of products or ads Outranked by competitors due to lower impression share

6. What is the challenge (Macro)? PPC becomes a less profitable channel and harder to justify 1 2 3 Harder to fill the funnel at the top Less budget to convert users at the bottom of the funnel Rely more on Organic Search which may need additional resource or cost 4

7. Industry Level CPCs Auto Dating eCommerce Education Employment Finance Health Home Industrial Legal Real Estate Technology Travel Consumer B2B £1 £2 £3 £4 £5 £6 £1.61 £2.68 £5.15 £0.93 £2.24 £1.64 £2.77 £2.11 £2.34 £2.06 £5.43 £1.91 £3.06 £1.23 £1.93

8. Case Study

9. The Result

10. The Result

11. How to navigate

12. Google Trends – Spikes in interest Auction insights – Impression share Bid Caps Automated Bidding GA4 & Data Tools SEMrush - Competitors Data Analysis and Monitoring Tools to help understand changes outside of our control Tools that are impacting CPC within our control

13. Data Analysis and Monitoring

14. Data Analysis and Monitoring

15. 1 2 3 Daily budget caps Bid strategy Campaign types Budget & Management

16. Google Ads Quality Score User Experience Keyword Relevance Expected CTR Quality Score

17. Improving your CTR on Google Ads can positively impact your Quality Score by signalling relevance and user engagement, lowering costs while increasing ad position AKA paying less CPC to maintain or increase ad rank 1 2 Keeps ads relevant Keep ads optimised Quality Score - CTR

18. Keywords Ads CRO / Heatmaps Measure Quality Score Optimise Repeat “Landing pages are the first interaction a customer will have with a brand. They set the tone for the relationship” Quality Score – Keyword to Landing Pages Landing Pages

19. Quality Score – Keyword to Landing Pages Keywords Ads Landing Pages CRO / Heatmaps Measure Quality Score Optimise Repeat

20. Campaign Types - Case Study Mid-High Funnel Cost Acquisition Cost Increases Costs

21. Campaign Types – Case Study Display Non-Branded Search (Category) Brand Ads Remarketing Search Ads Awareness Engagement Conversion Retention Non-Branded Search (Product) 2022 CPC £0.15 £1.56 £2.73 £1.05

22. Campaign Types – Case Study YouTube Non-brand search Supported with Non-Brand Pmax Brand Ads Remarketing Search Ads Awareness Engagement Conversion Retention Non-Branded Search (Product) 2023 CPC £0.01 £0.11 £3.16 £0.90 Variance Vs 2022 - 93% - 93% + 15% - 14%

23. Bonus Tips 1 Get a Non-Google CSS 2 Use a click fraud tool

24. Takeaways 1 2 3 Understanding the surge is half the battle Budget Caps, Quality Score & Campaign Structure are key to navigation The CPC surge is not always within our control