How to Reduce Your Cost Per Click on Google, Meta and Microsoft Ads

Reducing your cost per click is one of the most searched topics in paid advertising - but most articles on the subject miss something important. Your cost per click does not mean a lot on its own. If you are selling high value products or services (maybe you sell Ferraris online!), you can expect a higher cost per click than someone selling say... lightbulbs. The point is if clicks do not result in conversions then it does not matter how cheap they are - it is wasted money, you are just losing it more slowly.

Having said all of this, your CPC is still an important metric, especially if you are going for volume sales over high profit margins.

Why your CPC is what it is

On Google and Microsoft, cost per click is driven primarily by competition. People bid on keywords and the more in demand a keyword is, the more advertisers are prepared to pay. Competition is not the only factor though. Google wants ads to be relevant to the content on the landing page, so it uses a Quality Score - a measure of how relevant the ad and landing page are to the search term. A high Quality Score can significantly reduce what you pay per click even on competitive keywords.

Google and Microsoft both work using keywords. Meta is different - there are no keywords. The audience your ads appear in front of on Meta is determined by demographics: age, location, interests, job title, behaviour and other factors. CPC is driven by different factors on Meta and so requires a different approach, although it is still fundamentally about quality and relevance.

Meta likes good quality and relevance in the creative. The image, video or headline has a direct impact on what you pay per click. Meta measures how people respond to your ad - do they scroll past it? If so your costs go up. If they stop, click, like or share, the costs come down. Meta wants to keep content interesting and relevant as it pushes more ads at its users. You pay a premium as punishment for producing boring or irrelevant ads.

As with Google and Microsoft, your ads need to appear in front of the right people - those who have an interest in what you are offering. If your targeting is too broad it will be irrelevant to a lot of viewers, they will scroll past it and your costs will go up.

This is where it gets harder for SMEs managing their own ads. Google tells you exactly which search terms triggered your ads and what they cost. Meta gives you much less transparency - you know your audience and your spend but attributing results to specific audience segments is harder.

Ad Optimiser pulls your Meta performance data alongside your Google and Microsoft data, so you can see at a glance how each platform is performing against your targets. We do not think this is enough though, and we are currently developing deeper Meta audience and creative analysis that will go beyond whether your ads are working or not and provide a breakdown of which audiences, placements and creatives are getting the best results and where you should be focusing your budget.

Microsoft Ads works very similarly to Google but CPCs are usually lower because there is less competition for keywords. If you are only running Google Ads it is definitely worth considering whether Microsoft could deliver the same clicks at a lower cost. On a Windows PC, Microsoft pushes users towards Bing, which is what Microsoft Ads runs on - it generally performs better on desktop than mobile.

1. Tighten your keyword match types

Broad match keywords cast a very wide net and can trigger your ads for search terms that are only loosely related to what you offer. Targeted phrases and exact match keywords may mean fewer clicks, but when you do get clicks they are more likely to convert. Clicks that do not convert cost you money.

2. Use negative keywords

I feel I go on a lot about negative keywords but I cannot emphasise this point enough. A lawyer bidding on “contract law” might find their ads appearing when people search for “phone contract.” A dental practice bidding on “implants” could be showing up for “breast implants.” I have seen both. Check your search term report regularly and add anything irrelevant as a negative keyword. Ad Optimiser's Keywords page does this analysis automatically, flagging search terms that are costing you money without generating conversions.

3. Improve your Quality Score

I mentioned earlier what a Quality Score is. If someone searches for “emergency dentist Brighton” and lands on a homepage about teeth whitening, Google will see that as a poor experience. Your Quality Score suffers and you pay more per click as a result. Get this right and your CPC comes down over time without having to change your bids.

4. Check when and where your ads are running

Are your ads running 24 hours a day? Not much good if your business does not operate on a 24/7 basis. You could be paying to direct people to an unmanned phone line when nobody is there to answer. Check your conversion data by time of day and make sure your ads are only appearing at the most productive times.

Location can be just as important depending on your business. If you are a driving school that only operates in a certain region, you only want your ads appearing within that region. Clicks from outside your area are largely irrelevant, and you will also find yourself competing against national companies with much bigger budgets.

5. On Meta - your creative drives your CPC

On Meta the fix is testing and there is no way around that. Unlike Google where you can trace a problem back to a specific keyword, on Meta you are trying to stop someone mid-scroll. They were not looking for your advert - most of the time they find ads an annoyance, something that stops them looking at their friend's holiday snaps. You have a fraction of a second. A different image, a different headline, even a different colour can be the difference between someone stopping and someone scrolling straight past. Try things. Cut what does not work. Run more of what does.

If you are not sure whether your current ad spend is delivering a return, our guide to what a good ROAS looks like is a good place to start. You might also want to check whether you are making any of the five most common mistakes SMEs make with Google Ads.