Is Google Ads (AdWords) Always Expensive At The Beginning?

The answer to that depends on a number of factors. Firstly, “expensive” is a relative term and what could be expensive for one advertiser, could be a very small spend for another.

And that’s true for competing advertisers in similar industries.

Also, you should consider AdWords costs compared to other channels and what returns you get from each. Some channels like social media are cheap but returns are sometimes much lower.

However, it’s often true that average Cost Per Click (CPC) can be high at the beginning which can cost slightly more. That’s usually because your keywords will have no quality scores, so you will have to bid higher for higher Ad Rank.

One of the advantages of AdWords advertising is that you can start with a low test budget. That budget can be as low as you want and many advertisers start with budgets as low as £10 per day to assess possible returns.

Also, adjusting your AdWords budget is easy and can be done at the campaign level. This allows you to limit your spend at the beginning and then scale as you achieve good Return On Investment (ROI).

You can also focus your budget on campaigns, ad groups, ads or keywords that are bringing you the best returns. The ability to control every feature of your campaign means you can turn off any poor performance campaigns. And you can increase bids and budgets for the best performing ones.

Of course there are some very competitive industries. Average CPCs of £7 and more are common as the image below shows:

In such cases, you’ll want to start with a higher budget to receive a reasonable amount of traffic. This will help you test your ads and keywords and learn quicker what is working or not.

So, is AdWords expensive at the beginning? The answer is NO and that’s because costs are easy to control with budget settings. Also you’re able to reduce spend on lower performing campaigns and focus on the best return ones. That won’t take long to figure out and within a few days or weeks you will have that information