It’s the question on the mind of every budget-conscious advertiser: how do I lower my CPC (Cost per click)?

Megethos is here to help, and also caution against fixating on just CPC…

Understanding Ad Rankings

Your ad is ranked according to both the cost of your bid and your Quality Score, so lowering your CPC involves raising the metrics of your Quality Score. Your Quality Score is calculated according to three components: ad relevance, expected CTR, and last but not least, landing page experience.

We have a trifecta of tactics aimed at increasing Quality Score and, consequently, decreasing CPC. They correspond to each of the components of your Quality Score metrics. Our first tactic addresses ad relevance.

Ad Relevance

We dramatically increase our ad relevance when we use Single Ad Keyword Groups (SKAGs). Grouping our ads underneath a single keyword allows us to make tight matches to consumer searches.

Additionally, we make sure that these matches are restrictive, e.g., we avoid using match types like broad match. Broad match includes synonyms, potentially related searches, etc. This lowers the cost of searches unlikely to end in a conversion because searchers are less likely to find your page via a keyword unrelated to their search.

For example, if someone with the coming winter in mind searches for “coats” and sees your website for men’s formal “jackets” they are unlikely to make a conversion.

Further, we regularly review our search query reports. That way, we catch any search queries that are not resulting in conversions or any queries that are simply not relevant to our ads.

Expected Click Through Rate

Next, the expected Click Through Rate (CTR) will increase proportionally to ad relevance. Our SKAGs are already a strong factor here, but our commitment to high-quality ads does not allow us to rely on one tactic.

We continuously review our ad copy via A/B testing, or testing different versions of the same ad against each other. This allows us to see where we can improve our ads, resulting in higher expected CTR as well as a higher conversion rate. This also allows us to test ads featuring Google and Bing’s extra features like

• Expanded text ads: Ads with more room for copy. See #13 in our previous article for an example: 25 Reasons to Get Excited About Google Ads
• Ad extensions: Extensions are pieces of information external to ad copy but relevant to your ad. Some examples are location extensions, call extensions, sitelink extensions, review extensions, etc. These are very handy because they make information visible that will increase conversion rates. For example, if the ad uses a call extension and shows the phone number of the business right beneath it, the person searching can make a call right from that page.
• Responsive search ads: An ad feature within GoogleAds that tests different variations of ads for you.

Search engines rely on ads having good CTR for their revenue, so all of these features are designed with the success of your ad in mind.

Landing Page Experience

Lastly, the landing page experience is key to your Quality Score. If the SKAGs and the expected CTR are all in line, but the landing page is too vague, the Quality Score will suffer.

For example, if someone is searching for “bamboo toothbrushes,” clicks on a relevant ad, and then is directed to the home page of a retail store displaying all sorts of home products, the landing page is not specific enough.

We at Megethos make the landing page experience relevant by having different landing pages for different keyword themes. This makes sure the searcher’s experience is smooth from search to click to landing page.

Again, our commitment to quality ads ensures our upward evolution in this sector. We A/B test our versions of landing pages so that we use the best landing page possible.

Our Approach

At Megethos, our approaches to ad relevance expected CTR, and the landing page experience ensures that the searcher has a unilateral journey from click to conversion.

This is the essence of a good search ad, and it is why our three approaches increase the calculated Quality Score, driving down your CPC. You can rely on us to lower your CPC while driving up your Quality Score.