The calculator starts from our example: 10 requests a month, 5 requests per 100 clicks and CHF 5 a click. Swap in the click price for your own searches. Further down, we show how to find it for free.
How the price of a click is set
For every search, Google runs an auction among the advertisers targeting that search. It ranks the ads by how much each advertiser is willing to pay and by the quality of their ad.
You don’t necessarily pay your maximum bid. Usually, you pay just enough to get ahead of the ad ranked below yours. If there’s no ad below, you pay the reserve price, the minimum set by Google. This is what Google calls the actual cost per click, or CPC.
What drives the cost per click up
- Competition. The more advertisers on the same search, the more you have to pay to get ahead.
- The quality of your ad. Google rates each keyword from 1 to 10. This Quality Score takes three things into account: how likely people are to click the ad, how closely it matches the search, and the page that receives the visitor. A high-quality ad can get the same position for less.
- Your industry. Where a customer brings in a lot, advertisers are willing to pay more for each click.
- Location. The number of advertisers changes from one city to the next, and the price of a click changes with it.
- Timing. The time of day, the day of the week, the season and the device also change the bidding.
- The position you aim for. Ads above the results usually cost more than those below them, because Google sets higher thresholds there.
Why we don’t give an average CPC
You’ll find “average costs per click” by industry online. We don’t publish any. We have no verified figure for French-speaking Switzerland, and we’d rather not make one up.
An average CPC also lumps together searches that have nothing in common. “Lawyer” and “divorce lawyer Lausanne” don’t attract the same people or the same advertisers. The figure that counts is the price of clicks on your searches, in your region. You can find it yourself.
Finding the price of your keywords, for free
Google estimates the price of clicks, search by search, in its Keyword Planner. The tool is free. You need a Google Ads account, but you can use it before you spend a single franc.
- In your Google Ads account, open the Tools menu, then Keyword Planner.
- Choose “Discover new keywords” and type what your customers search for, for example “électricien Lausanne”.
- Set the location to your region, and the language to French.
- Look at the two “top of page bid” columns. They give the low and high end of what advertisers have paid so far to appear at the top of the results for that search.
- Enter a price between the two in the calculator.
It’s only an estimate. Your real cost per click shows up in your account after a few weeks of running the campaign, and it then moves with the competition.
Click-through rate and cost per click: the difference
The click-through rate is the share of people who click your ad out of those who see it. You don’t pay for it, but it weighs on the price: the expected click-through rate is one of the three parts of the Quality Score. An ad that people click because it answers their search usually gets good positions for less.
Don’t confuse it with the conversion rate, the share of clicks that turn into a request: a call or a form. That’s the rate the calculator uses, and it’s the one that decides what a customer costs you.
How to lower your cost per click
There are two levers: pay less for each click, and stop paying for useless clicks.
- An ad that uses the words of the search, and a page that keeps its promise, with the phone number and the form easy to see. That’s what the Quality Score measures.
- Not the top spot at any price. A position a little lower often costs less.
- Ads where and when your customers search: an area limited to the one where you work, and hours that match yours if you answer the phone.
- Specific searches rather than broad words, so you don’t pay for clicks from people looking for something else.
- Excluding, every week, the searches that don’t bring in customers. It doesn’t lower the price of a click, but it saves you from paying for useless ones.
The goal isn’t the cheapest click. It’s the cheapest request. A pricier click that brings in a customer is worth more than ten cheap clicks that bring in nothing.
The minimum budget, from the price of a click
Google lets you set your budget per day and change it whenever you like. The useful minimum, though, depends on the price of a click. In our example, it takes 200 clicks to get 10 requests. At CHF 5 a click, that’s CHF 1,000 a month. If a click costs twice as much on your searches, the same 200 clicks cost CHF 2,000. If it costs half as much, CHF 500.
Why a budget that’s too small ends up costing more, and how to set yours: it’s all on the Google Ads campaign budget page.
What management costs, on top of the clicks
The clicks are paid directly to Google, through an account opened in your name. We take no commission on them. Our management costs CHF 2,500 a month, for three campaigns. Every business day, we monitor spending. Every week, we exclude useless searches. Every month, we write new ads and test a new page for each goal.
What a month of management includes, task by task, is on the Google Ads management cost page.