B2B Google Ads Keywords Cost About 21% More, Data Shows

What happened

Agency Grey Matter tracked 1,349 non-brand keywords across 14 B2B advertisers and compared April-to-September click costs with the same period a year earlier. After controlling for spend, ad position and Quality Score, the same keywords cost about 21% more per click. The likely range is wide, from 1% to 44%. This was reported by Search Engine Journal.

Without any controls, the increase was 29%. Controlling for budget-related factors brought it to 22%, and position and Quality Score brought it to 21%.

The data covers Search campaigns only. Performance Max, Shopping and Display are out. Broad match, Maximize Clicks campaigns, brand terms and competitor terms were also excluded.

The spending effect

The more interesting finding is that higher spend went with higher CPCs on the same keywords. Each 10% increase in campaign spend was tied to about 1.4% higher CPCs, on top of the market increase. That is roughly 11% for doubled spend.

The extreme case nearly quadrupled its non-brand Search budget, and its same-keyword CPCs rose 132%. Its brand keywords, on a flat budget, rose only about 4% in the third quarter.

The report links this to automated bidding. Strategies like Maximize Conversions spend bigger budgets by entering auctions they previously skipped, including higher positions, more competitive searches and pricier times of day. The report calls this correlation, not proven causation.

Not all advertisers were hit equally

For 11 advertisers with enough matching keywords, average non-brand CPC rose 36% overall. The report attributes 22 points to the market and 3 to higher spending. Keyword, match type and bid strategy changes took away 3 points. That leaves 14 points unexplained, mostly at a few advertisers whose CPCs roughly doubled, likely because of competition in their categories.

Actual changes ranged from a 30% drop to a 121% rise. Ten of the 11 paid more for the same keywords. One advertiser kept spend flat, saw the same keywords rise 20%, then shifted budget into pricier phrase match and ended up with a 40% higher overall CPC.

Read it with caution

The sample is 14 clients of one agency. Remove the biggest spender and the estimate falls to about 17%, with a range of -2% to +40%, which includes zero. Include broad match and it rises to around 31%.

There is also no data on industries, currencies, conversion rates or cost per lead. The report can't say whether higher CPCs came with better or worse results. Higher CPCs under Smart Bidding can be a sign of a healthy account, so judge performance by CPA or ROAS.

Alphabet's third-quarter filing shows Google Search CPC up 4% year over year. That doesn't contradict this study. Alphabet's figure is a blended average across all paid clicks, which shifts as the mix of clicks changes. Grey Matter holds keywords and accounts constant.

What to do with this

• Run a same-keyword check. Compare the year-over-year cost change for identical non-brand keywords with your account's average CPC change. The gap shows what your own keyword, match type and bidding choices are doing.
• Scale budgets in steps. For 2027 planning, raise spend gradually and judge each step by the cost of the additional clicks, not the blended average.
• Put a value on extra conversions. On Maximize Conversions, decide what an incremental conversion is worth before raising the budget, then set a target to match.
• Watch your brand terms. Flat-budget brand keywords barely moved in the extreme case, so they make a useful control.
• Track profit, not CPC. A rising CPC is only a problem if CPA or ROAS gets worse.

The data ends in September, so fourth-quarter auctions aren't included.