Where Do You Stand With Google AdWords?

Every business owner wants to create ads that are successful, and sometimes navigating Pay-Per-Click (PPC) can be a bit daunting, especially when it comes to Google AdWords, the king of all PPC.

Don’t fear, understanding Google AdWords, and where your business stands in your industry is easy enough. We’ve broken down the system to help you navigate and plan your marketing strategy accordingly.

The ABC’s of Google AdWords

Google Adwords has a lot of hype because it’s an extremely effective way of driving relevant and qualified traffic to your website.

They offer advertisements which appear in search results on google.com with the use of Google Adwords or advertisements that appear on other websites through the display network and Google’s AdSense program.


The red section is sponsored results, while the green is searches that come up organically. Where you rank on the page is based on how strong your keyword, SEO, and AdWords are.

If you’re using AdSense, your ads would also appear in selected areas on a website.


Determining how ads show up is based on keywords and the auction system that is built around them.

The Google AdWords auction is focused on keywords and advertisers will bid on these keywords, basing each bid on how much they are willing to pay for a Google user to click on their ad.

When a user clicks the ad, the advertiser pays a certain cost (cost per click, or CPC) which is calculated by using this formula:

This is how Pay-Per-Click (PPC) originated.

To win the AdWords auctions and appear for relevant keywords, you’ll need to optimize your quality score and bid amount.

There are a few things to keep in mind when you’re trying to improve your quality score and that is as follows:

The relevance of your Google ad to the search query

  • The relevance of the Google keyword to your ad group
  • The relevance of your ad to its landing page
  • Your overall historical account performance

There are two major benefits when it comes to having a high-quality score and that is lower cost and higher exposure.

The money side of Google Ads

When it comes to the cost of Google Ads there are many factors that make the cost vary. Here are the most dominant reasons that affect the cost:

  • Competitiveness of your keywords and industry
  • Your geographical location
  • The quality of your advertising campaigns

Not every industry is treated the same and the cost does vary heavily based on the industry you’re in. Here are the industry averages here in America:


These prices are averages. It’s important to realize that your location also plays a role in how high or low your cost will be.

Let’s say you’re an auto dealer and there are not many auto dealers in your area. While the industry average for search is $1.43, you could see a lower price if you’re just targeting your local area that doesn’t have much competition.

If you own a company that has a lot of competition you could see a significantly higher price that well exceeds the industry average. This is because competition and location are huge factors in price.

Where your industry stands matters

One of the major factors when it comes to cost is competitiveness. Not every industry is treated the same because some get way more traffic online than others. This makes it harder for some business owners to understand where their industry stands on Google.


While this is an industry standard, your location still plays a major role.

An air conditioning company is going to have more CTR and PPC in South Florida than an air conditioning company in Wisconsin just because there’s more of a demand based on the weather of their location.

It’s important to understand the competitiveness of your industry, and then apply that to Google AdWords to make sense as to why your cost may be higher than someone else’s.

While Google AdWords is pretty complex but at its core, it’s very easy to navigate and really just takes basic understandings of your industry to perfect. Learn your local marketing and use that to create ad campaigns that will have a high ROI with Google AdWords.

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