What’s great about PPC is that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. The bad news is that you are paying for every click, and this can get expensive — scary-expensive! Check out these webinar slides as we share 13 Scary-Good Ways to Lower Your Cost Per Click in Google & Facebook Ads. You’ll learn: - Average CPCs in 2021 for the top five PPC platforms. - 13 platform-specific tips to lower your CPC. - The one mistake you should avoid with CPCs.

1. Scary-Good Ways to
Lower Your CPC
in Google & Facebook

2. How are we different?
It’s all in the name.
LOCAL.
The heart and dedication of a LOCAL partner, powered
by a national network. Our award-winning journalism
and community connections, through 260 daily brands
in 46 states across the country, makes us the largest
media company in the U.S.
Together, we reach over 155 million consumers - that's 1
in 2 adult Americans* actively seeking information on
what's happening around them - who choose to come to
us as their trusted source for local news and
entertainment.
iQ.
We match our LOCAL, trusted
brands with innovative technology
and intelligence. Our IQ.
Which, of course, is our industry-leading
technology, digital marketing services, and tools
we've built through partnership and the strategic
acquisitions of ThriveHive, ReachLocal, SweetIQ,
and Wordstream, to help businesses across the
country grow and thrive.
Sources: Gannett Investor Relations (Note, ex-Guam there are 260 local dailies across 47
states); Comscore September 2019 de-duplicated audience report.

3. The easy answer:
• The price of a click on your ad, of course.
Total spend divided by clicks.
• Calculate for keyword, ad, ad group,
campaign, and more.
What is cost per click?
There’s
more to
it guys!
The hard answer:
• Algorithmic formulas
• Different for everyone
• Google Ads CPC formula uses your ad rank,
max bid, and quality score

4. • This is pay–per-click advertising…so…VERY!
• ROI is determined by how much you’re paying
for clicks
• But equally as important: the quality of the
traffic you’re getting from those clicks.
• CPC not to be focused on at the expense of other
metrics.
The goal in lowering
your CPC is not to get
lowest CPC! It’s to get
the highest value at
the lowest possible
cost per click.
How important is cost per click?

5. How to get the best value at the
lowest possible CPC in:
Google
Display
Facebook Instagram
Google
Search
Google
Shopping

6. Over the past four
years, average cost
per click across all
industries:
$2.39 - $2.76
How to lower Google
Search CPC
$1.30
dining &
nightlife
$6.35
legal

7. Average Google Search cost per click

8. 1. Choose your keywords wisely
➢ Choose based on:
• Price (not always cheapest keyword!)
• Volume
• Competition
• Intent
• Past performance
➢ Downsize your keyword list to save on spend
elsewhere while you bid on that one high-
converting keyword.
Build a healthy mix of low-cost keywords and high-reward
keywords to get the lowest CPC possible without sacrificing
conversion quality or quantity.

9. 2. Improve your relevance
Remember, Quality Score determines CPC:
And Quality Score is determined by historical
performance, CTR, and relevance of assets to the
keywords.
So improve your relevance!
• Regularly refresh your ads and add new
keywords
• Improve your ad copy
• Look at the Ad Strength recommendations
• Optimize landing pages
Google will accept a lower bid (aka make less
money) if the ad will be more relevant and
trustworthy (i.e. higher QS) to the searcher.

10. Good relevancy!

11. 3. Try out the Search Partner Network
• Google search partners are websites with a search feature that show Google Search ads.
• Clicks from search partners tend to be cheaper since they are less competitive.
• Select in campaign settings

12. How to lower
Google Display CPC
The highest Display
ad CPC ($0.81) is still
lower than lowest
Search ad CPC ($1.30)

13. Average cost per click on search and display

14. 4. Use exclusions
• Topics: Keeps your ads off of sites your audience won’t be visiting.
• Audiences: Make sure your ads aren’t showing to already-converted users.
• Placements: Excluding the Mobile apps and games placement is a common practice

15. 5. Refine your audiences
➢ Custom Audiences
• Interest & behavior
• Types of websites browsed
• Types of apps downloaded
• Category of physical location visited
➢ See which ones can bring in the lowest CPC

16. How to lower Google
Shopping CPC
Our latest data shows
an average CPC
across all industries:
$0.58
$1.09
Office &
business
needs
$0.34
Arts & music

17. Search vs Shopping CPC (during COVID)

18. 6. Build negative keyword lists that include
competitors
• You can’t target keywords with
Shopping campaigns
• But you can escape the bad ones!
• Build a solid negative keyword list
• Exclude big brand competitors

19. 7. Try the priority bidding campaign structure
• Create three campaigns for the same product
group. Assign different bids, negatives, and
priorities to each.
• High priority: Captures generic terms, low bids.
• Medium priority: Captures branded terms,
average bids.
• Low priority: Captures brand + style terms, high
bids.
• TelIing Google to keep bids low for low-
converting terms and bid higher for high-intent
terms.

20. 8. Optimize your product feed
Are your attributes:
• Accurate?
• As specific as can be?
• Best matched to intent?
Revisit:
• Title
• Image
• Category
• Type
• Description
By optimizing your product feed, you’re
helping Google maximize the value of
each click.

21. How to lower
Facebook CPC
$3.77
Finance
$0.45
Apparel
It all depends on the
campaign objective!
For conversions objective,
our data has shown:
$1.72

22. 9. Choose your campaign objective wisely
• Objective tells Facebook what to focus
on, sometimes at the expense of other
metrics.
• Choose your objective based on your
end goal—(which might not be lower
CPC!)
• If you’re unsure, split your campaigns
out and test

23. 10. A/B test your ads
➢If Facebook thinks your ad
won’t drive actions, you’ll pay
more for that ad’s click.
➢Test until you find what works!
➢What to test:
• Images
• CTA buttons
• Copy
• Emojis

24. Testing = great Facebook ads
➢Knows its audience
➢Hey! I should sell my scarves!
➢Sells itself
➢Aspirational messaging
➢Addresses pain points
➢“Discover” = intrigue
➢Not just a doctor, but a great doctor
➢CNN endorsement
➢Subtleties!

25. 11. Try ad scheduling
➢Irrelevant clicks = higher CPC!
➢Make sure your ads are only
showing during times of the
day or week when you’ll pull in
the most relevant clicks.
➢Lifetime budget and ad set
level only
➢Time zone friendly
➢Think about:
• Lifestyle
• Mindset
• Your operating hours

26. How to lower
Instagram ads CPC
It all depends on the
campaign objective! For
all objectives in 2021, it’s
$1.54
$6.81
Lead gen &
Video views
$0.34
Traffic

27. 12. Be selective with your targeting
• Instagram is saturated
• Be picky!
• Dial it down to the right audience.
• Relevant clicks = lower CPC

28. 13. Make your ads POP
• How can you stop the scroll?
• Attractive colors & contrast
• Images that quickly convey the value
• Intriguing phrases and questions