You’ve established your company and created a website where people can buy, use, or sign up for your products or services online. If you’re debating whether to run Google ads, you’re probably wondering, “How much do Google ads cost?”
Numerous factors influence the cost scale on the Google Ads platform, so there is no exact answer. With that in mind, here is our step-by-step guide to budgeting for Google Ads.
How much does Google advertising cost?
Because there is no set fee or minimum amount required to advertise on Google, the short answer is that you can spend as little or as much as you want. If your organization is a charity, text ads may be free because you may be eligible for Google’s free advertising spend.
However, just because you can spend as much money as you want on Google doesn’t mean you should. This is due to the large number of businesses advertising on Google, and it will take much more than, say, 5 AED to stand out from the crowd.
How much should I pay for Google advertising?
To make your ad spend count, spend enough to run ads where people are likely to see them, regardless of which network you want to advertise on:
- The Google Search network.
- The Google Search Partners network.
- The Google Display Network (GDN).
- YouTube.
Spend enough to run ads on the first page of search results to make your ad spend count when advertising on the Google Search Network. This is because most people do not look past the first page of search results – CRM software company HubSpot’s research from 2014 revealed that “75 percent of users never scroll past the first page of search results” – and if users find what they are looking for in the few results that they see before scrolling, they may not look at the rest of the first page.
Check that your ad spends on the Google Display Network results in viewable impressions rather than indiscriminate impressions to make your ad spend count.
Ad impressions on the display network are instances when an ad appears on a placement – a web or app page – which could be anywhere, including below the fold, which means people must scroll down to see it. Ad impressions are only considered “viewable” if at least 50% of the ad’s area is visible for 1 second. Video ad impressions are considered “viewable” if they are played for at least 2 seconds.
Check that your ad spends on YouTube is resulting in video views to make your ad spend count. A video ad may be visible to the user on YouTube, as it is with video ads on the Google Display Network, and the user may choose not to play it. A video “view” is recorded when the video is played for 30 seconds or more, or in its entirety if the video is less than 30 seconds long, or when the user acts because of the video, such as clicking on a link in the video to access a webpage.
Although users may scroll down and click on or view an ad, the rate of user interaction with ads is one of the factors that determine ad quality score, and ads with a high-quality score cost less than ads with a low-quality score (that have the same competition in the ad auction).
How much should I budget for Google Ads?
So, how much should you budget for show ads in places where people will see them? The cost of targeting keywords and placements varies depending on:
- Competition.
- Google defines the quality of your ad.
- The search volume of a keyword or the size of the site readership, app membership, or channel viewership of placement.
- Whether you have narrowed the targeting by any other means.
As a result, the best way to budget for new campaigns in your Google Ads Management account is first to determine how much money you have available to spend, then research all of the areas where you would want to show ads if you had an unlimited budget, then make a shortlist of the areas you would like to show ads in first and foremost, as many as the amount you have available to spend will allow, run your campaign, and finally see if a campaign is successful.
Finally, there is no minimum cost to advertise on Google Ads, so when budgeting for a new campaign, set a budget that you are comfortable spending over one month, choose how you want to spend it, ensure that your ads are getting impressions that are likely to be viewed, and then determine whether you need to pay more or make changes to the campaign to achieve greater visibility for your target keywords.