Investing in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is one of the best ways to quickly boost your online visibility, leads, and sales.
But how much does PPC cost? PPC pricing can vary depending on various factors, like your industry or ad network.
While ad budgets vary dramatically, on average, small and mid-size companies spend around $15,000-$20,000 per month on PPC campaigns with an average cost-per-click (CPC) of $2.59, based on data from WebFX.
Keep reading to learn more about what you can expect to pay for your PPC management and what factors go into that price!
And if you’re ready to browse PPC pricing plans right away, WebFX provides transparent PPC pricing so you know exactly what you’ll pay and receive with our plans. Visit our PPC services page to learn more about how we can help you drive more sales and revenue!
PPC is a type of advertising where companies pay a fee to place ads on a search engine result page (SERP) that appears when someone searches for a particular term or keyword. The SERP displays the PPC ads, and you pay only when someone clicks on them and goes to your website.
How much does PPC cost?
Depending on how your PPC strategy is structured, you could have few or many line items tallying up total PPC cost. Some key factors include: who manages the PPC campaigns (in-house vs. agency vs. consultant), the average CPC in your industry, how often you update campaigns, and more.
Check out the table below for a full breakdown of average PPC management fees:
Cost
Ad Spend
Varies
PPC tools and software
$15 to $800 per month
PPC management cost (agency)
12% to 30% of ad spend per month
PPC management cost (in-house)
Varies
What determines the cost of PPC management?
So, what determines the cost of PPC management? Many factors influence how much you can expect to pay for your campaign, such as:
Your budget
Your goals
Your industry
Your chosen ad networks
PPC works by bidding on keywords that your target audience searches for online. Your industry and the products and services you sell will determine which keywords you will bid on.
If you’re in a more competitive industry, like financial services, you’ll need to be more competitive in your bid strategies to ensure your PPC ads drive sales and revenue.
There are also a variety of ad networks you can choose from, like Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising.
Each one requires its own unique strategy and has different costs and bid optimization strategies.
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Comparing the cost of PPC management by ad network
Just like with traditional advertising, placing PPC ads on different platforms will generate different costs. Compare what you can expect to pay for PPC management based on some popular ad networks you might use:
What is the cost of PPC management on Google Ads?
Google Ads is one of the most popular PPC ad networks. If you want your ads to display on the Google search engine results page, you’ll want to use Google Ads.
Google Ads has two networks—Google Search Network and Google Display Network.
Google Search Network focuses on ads that display in the search results, while Google Display Network features ads that appear on other Google properties like YouTube and Gmail.
With Google Ads, you’ll bid on the keywords you want to trigger your ads. You can set a maximum bid for how much you want to spend each time someone clicks on your ad.
While Google Search Network is typically more expensive on a CPC basis than Google Display Network, the actual cost of each ad will vary widely depending on your industry and bidding strategy. For example, a law firm might see an average CPC of $65 on Google Ads while a salon might have a lower value, say $15, due to the difference in competition and cost of services.
What is the cost of PPC management on Microsoft Advertising?
With Microsoft Advertising, you can create PPC ads that display on Bing, Yahoo!, and DuckDuckGo search engines.
Microsoft Advertising works similarly to Google Ads in that your ads appear at the top and bottom of the search results. However, the Microsoft ad platform can be slightly less competitive than Google Ads, with more than 80% of companies solely focusing their PPC efforts on Google Ads.
Smaller businesses competing with big brands in a competitive industry, like SaaS software, could find more success in Microsoft Advertising’s less competitive ad network.
What are the options for PPC management?
There are three options for managing PPC advertising: running PPC campaigns using your in-house marketing team, working with a freelance marketer, or going through a marketing agency. Each of these methods has its pros and cons, so considering their differences can help you make the best decision for your business.
Managing PPC in-house
One option for managing PPC advertising is your in-house marketing team. This strategy can give you more control over your PPC ads and your overall marketing strategy. It can also help you keep your marketing budget lower.
However, there are several disadvantages to managing PPC in-house. Your marketing team may already be juggling other duties, like social media, email campaigns, website updates, and more. Your current staff may not have the expertise to effectively run PPC campaigns, and it could be far more costly to hire additional team members than to outsource PPC management.
Going through a freelancer
You can also use the PPC management services of a freelance marketer. These freelancers don’t work for a marketing agency and are solely responsible for your PPC campaigns. This option can be cheaper than going with a marketing agency.
But working with a freelancer brings its own pitfalls. Successful PPC advertising requires skill, resources, and experience. Freelancers typically don’t have access to nearly as many resources as a PPC agency. As with managing PPC in-house, using a freelancer runs the risk of wasting your advertising budget on ineffective campaigns.
Using a PPC agency
If you need help maximizing your PPC results or don’t have enough time or resources to manage your campaign, you might opt to work with an experienced PPC agency. A PPC agency uses expertise and technology to help you craft and manage a PPC campaign that enables you to achieve your goals.
Working with a PPC agency will typically cost you more than either of the other two options. You can usually expect to pay anywhere from 12% to 30% of your total ad spend per month if you opt to partner with a PPC agency.
However, an agency’s staff brings experience in creating and managing PPC campaigns that can produce high-value results for your business. You can also scale your advertising up and down as needed to maximize your value.
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PPC pricing plans from a freelance marketer versus a marketing agency may be fairly similar. Both could charge you a flat monthly fee, an hourly fee, or a percentage of your ad spend for services like strategy planning, keyword research, and reporting. The difference is in the experience and resources each has access to.
Trying to decide whether it’s worth partnering with a PPC agency? When you partner with a PPC agency like WebFX, you’ll gain a team of experts that help you save time and earn a higher ROI.
PPC management packages from WebFX include:
PPC strategy creation and campaign planning
Competitor analysis
Keyword research and analysis
Bid management
Ad copy
Landing page and ad design
PPC tools and software
Ongoing reporting
We offer personalized PPC management services tailored specifically for your unique business. Visit our PPC services page to learn more about our custom PPC packages and request a proposal!
How much should I pay for PPC management?
PPC is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies because it works for almost any budget.
You can choose how much you want to bid on your keywords, so you never spend more than you want. Plus, you can see results almost immediately.
So, just because companies spend an average of $9,000 to $10,000 on their PPC management doesn’t mean you need to.
How much you spend depends on your company’s unique needs and goals.
Maybe you already have a decent amount of web traffic and leads coming in from your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and want to maximize your visibility even more with PPC ads.
In this case, you might want to spend less on PPC than your other marketing strategies. On the other hand, if you don’t have a well developed content program that is sending you organic traffic on a regular basis, you’ll likely want to spend more on your PPC campaigns.
So, what’s the bottom line? Think about your company’s needs and goals to determine a PPC budget that makes the most sense for you.
Maximize your PPC success with WebFX
When you invest in a PPC campaign, your number one goal is to earn the highest ROI for your efforts. That’s where WebFX can help.
At WebFX, our PPC experts have more than 25 years of experience helping companies like yours maximize their PPC budget to drive more sales and revenue.
From helping you create a winning bidding strategy for high-value keywords to continuously improving your campaign for optimal results, our team does all the heavy lifting so you can sit back, relax, and watch your revenue soar.
Our PPC experts help you optimize your bid strategies to ensure your budget earns the highest return on investment (ROI). You’ll also gain access to our award-winning software, MarketingCloudFX, to unlock advanced ad tracking and in-depth reports that allow you to track your campaign’s success.
Plus, we’re a full-service digital marketing agency. That means our team can help you channel your marketing spend into other campaigns and strategies, like social media and search engine optimization (SEO), to drive incredible results for your business.
Contact us today to chat directly with one of our friendly strategists about the needs and goals of your business. We can’t wait to hear from you!
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