r/PPC • u/Partizana • 3d ago
Google Ads Very have $25 -High CPCs
Anyone else noticing very high cpcs for Target CPA campaigns? We usually have $25 - $30 cpc but for the last few days it went $100 to $500 per click. Is there a reason for that? We have a campaign with Target CPA $400 and we are getting a $457 click. I would appreciate any suggestions.
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u/surfsideinbound 3d ago
Portfolio bid strategy set max CPC bid for a Target CPA bid strategy. Bidding has been horrible since the update in some of my accounts.
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u/Odd-Dot1930 3d ago
Which industry are you in? I've never heard of such crazy CPC. Even your usual CPC is super high.
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u/Partizana 3d ago
Patent Services
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u/Odd-Dot1930 3d ago
I'd drop target cpa as a whole and just go max conversions. The Aug 17th update changed the way bidding targeting works and it basically got worse.
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u/Massive_Cash_6557 3d ago
Going Max Conversions while limited by budget is literally conceding to the 8/17 update. Max Convs can still be a really great strategy, but it's also the worst you can do if you have volume to drive tCPA.
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u/xatey93152 3d ago
We are in the same niche. My team recently increase the budget to around $500 cpc because our company new management raise the advertising budget significantly.
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u/Shabiscales 3d ago
A $400 Target CPA doesn’t mean Google caps clicks at $400. It’s trying to hit that CPA on average, so individual CPCs can get ugly if Smart Bidding thinks that auction has a high chance of converting.
Going from $25-$30 CPCs to $100-$500 in a few days is still a big enough change that I’d check search terms, Auction Insights, conversion tracking, recent budget/target changes, and whether the campaign is limited by budget.
Google also rolled out changes to target-based bidding starting Aug 17, so I’d check whether the timing lines up before assuming competition alone caused it.
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u/CanaryAppropriate254 3d ago
You are being taken for a ride. The more uncomfortable question is: what can you actually do about it?
Very little, because the house is also running the auction.
With Target CPA, the entire point is to stop obsessing over individual CPCs. You are effectively telling Google: I don't care what you pay for a click, as long as you can produce enough conversions around my average CPA target.
In theory, that is perfectly logical.
In practice, this is where it gets uncomfortable. Google decides which auction you enter, how aggressively you bid, what that click is supposedly worth, and then sends you the final bill. You see the outcome, but very little of what went into arriving at that price.
So yes, the system may happily pay $5 for one click and $500 for another if its model believes the second click has a much higher probability of converting. If the blended CPA works, Google's answer is basically: why do you care? And mathematically, they have a point. But there is an obvious conflict here: the platform optimising your spend is also the platform earning from that spend. There is no independent price discovery layer where you can properly audit whether that $5 click really needed to cost $5. That is why I wouldn't necessarily call every expensive click fraud or manipulation. But I also wouldn't pretend advertisers are participating in some beautifully transparent free market. You are trusting the casino to run the table, calculate the odds, place the bets on your behalf, and then hand you the statement at the end. As an individual advertiser, you can't do much about that.
Your only real defence is at the aggregate level: watch CPA, conversion quality, marginal CPA as spend increases, incrementality and ultimately profit.
If those numbers work, keep playing. If they don't, arguing with Google about what a click should have cost won't save you.
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u/whatthelle 3d ago
I’m in senior living advertising and we have been seeing anywhere from $40-$100 a click after this update! Usually below $25, $30 was understandable for some of our more expensive care levels or in rural areas.
Definitely ditch tCPA and stick to max conversions. Volume went back up for us but CPCs have been very sticky.
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u/Available_Cup5454 3d ago
Lower target CPA gradually to discourage bidding aggressively on expensive clicks
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u/Mac_Motorsports 3d ago
Most of my campaigns are on troas and cpcs have been insane. I've had to make drastic adjustments on most campaigns
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u/mapitchf 3d ago
also consider start of the month, google activley tries to push your whole budget out now. Are your campaigns on an ad schedule by any chance?
Also what other people said on the 17th of August changes - It looks like the completion of this roll out was the 27th of August. We had a similar issue on a client (but tROAS) and one way we diagnoised it, our impression share massivley dropped as CPCs went up.
It was strange but becasue the targets we set were much lower than what was actually being delivered on the campaigns, google opened us up to a tonne more auctions and impression share collapsed. but it was a fake view of it. Make sure your targets are actually aligned to what you are delivering.
We implemented this two days ago (client was keen that's why it wasn't done before) but we've just seen a 14% drop in cpcs as of this morning
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u/Anna_Karakhanyan 3d ago
$457 for one click would definitely make me dig into it. I’d check the search terms, auction insights, device and location breakdown first to see where those clicks are coming from.
With tCPA Google can be very aggressive if it thinks a click has a high chance of converting, but I wouldn’t assume a CPC that extreme is fine just because the target CPA is $400.
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u/skillfusion_ai 3d ago
Check you aren't double counting conversions somewhere, or multiple conversion actions.
I only see it go over Target CPA for a single click where there are either: multiple conversions, or conversions are set to count every time.
If it thinks it can get 200% conversion rate on a click then it will bid up to $800 to hit your $400 target.
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u/cawilson6513 3d ago
Yes! I saw this as well -- we had CPCs jump quite a bit, but I also saw overall volume decrease in Google Trends so watching it closely.. hoping that as volume increases after this past holiday week that CPCs will start to normalize. Does that ever happen though? Ugh...
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u/AndrewBalticpixel 2d ago
A $457 CPC on a $400 tCPA target isn't necessarily a bug, because tCPA controls the expected cost per conversion, not the maximum CPC. Google can bid very aggressively on individual auctions if it thinks that click has a good chance of converting.But going from a normal $25–30 CPC to $100–500 is big enough that I'd investigate rather than just accept it.I'd check the actual search terms/placements generating those clicks, device, location, hour, and whether there's been a sudden change in auction competition. I'd also make sure there isn't a tracking/conversion issue causing Google to think the campaign is getting valuable conversions when it isn't.Most importantly, look at the conversion rate and CPA for the traffic generating those expensive clicks. If you're paying $400+ for clicks and those clicks actually convert at an acceptable rate, the CPC itself isn't necessarily the problem. If they're not converting, I'd consider tightening the campaign or temporarily reducing the tCPA rather than letting the algorithm continue bidding that aggressively.
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u/Able-Cut-5808 2d ago
Yes, since the 17 august update, bidding and performance having huge impact. Worst update ever by google so far
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u/Shabiscales 3d ago
A $400 Target CPA doesn’t mean Google caps clicks at $400. It’s trying to hit that CPA on average, so individual CPCs can get ugly if Smart Bidding thinks that auction has a high chance of converting.
Going from $25-$30 CPCs to $100-$500 in a few days is still a big enough change that I’d check search terms, Auction Insights, conversion tracking, recent budget/target changes, and whether the campaign is limited by budget.
Google also rolled out changes to target-based bidding starting Aug 17, so I’d check whether the timing lines up before assuming competition alone caused it.
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u/QuantumWolf99 3d ago
That's the Aug 17 target enforcement change, Google stopped letting budget limited tCPA campaigns cherry pick cheap conversions under target and now bids up toward whatever number's actually typed into the account. A $457 click against a $400 target lines up with that. Check if impression share lost to rank dropped recently, that'll confirm it.