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  • Elementor #14

    Why Google Ad Costs Are Rising in 2025 (+What to Do About It)

    In our most recent Google Ads benchmarks report, we found that search ads cost per lead increased about 25% from 2023 to 2024, and based on recent trends, we won’t be surprised to see that percentage rise again when we release our 2025 benchmarks in a couple of months.

    Why does cost per lead keep increasing in Google Ads? Today, we’ll be digging into the rising costs, as well as what you can do about it to keep your ad costs as low as possible while still driving meaningful results.

    Why Google Ads costs are rising

    We’ve identified a few factors that are contributing to the increase in cost per lead (CPL) many businesses are seeing in Google Ads.

    Higher competition

    Unsurprisingly, higher competition is a huge factor driving up costs. As more and more businesses invest in search advertising, competition for high-intent keywords increases. This leads to higher costs for keyword bids which drives up CPL.

    Increased privacy restrictions

    Privacy restrictions have also played a role in increasing CPL for many businesses. Cookie deprecation (although the full rollout has been delayed multiple times) and iOS tracking limitations have made it more difficult for advertisers to track their customers—which makes it more difficult to target them. This means you may be paying more to find the right audience for your ads.

    AI-driven bidding strategies

    While Google Smart Bidding bid strategies are highly effective at optimizing toward queries that are most likely to convert, the following campaign structure pitfalls can lead to poor cost-efficiency over time:

    • Overly restrictive targeting and/or match types
    • Low volume of conversion signals
    • Poor ad strength

    🛑 Think your Google Ads aren’t performing like they should? Find out how to improve them with a free, instant audit >Google Ads Performance Grader

    5 tips to keep Google Ads costs low

    So, what can you do to keep costs low despite these extenuating circumstances driving up CPLs? Here are some tips to try.

    1. Collect and use first-party data

    Collecting and using first-party data is key to keeping your Google Ads costs low in 2025. If you can better understand and track your audience, you can refine your targeting to increase your return on investment.

    Here are some tips to get started:

    • Send a regular newsletter. A newsletter not only helps you stay top of mind with customers and prospects, but it gives you an opportunity to build your email list. Drive subscribers to your newsletter to collect valuable first-party data you can use in your campaigns.
    • Create a lead magnet. A lead magnet entices users to provide their data in exchange for a helpful piece of content or a tool. Think of what your audience would be interested in—this could be a webinar on how to winterize your home from an HVAC company, a wedding planning template from a wedding venue, or a cost calculator from a home renovation company.
    • Use a lead management tool. A lead management tool is essential for helping you manage and use the data you’re collecting from your lead generation strategies. This helps you follow up with leads, collect more information about them to build more advanced profiles, and analyze key characteristics of your overall customer base.

    2. Focus on lead qualification and follow-up

    You  can generate a steady supply of leads without seeing any business growth if you’re not converting those leads into customers.

    This is where higher lead qualification standards and effective follow-up comes into play, meaning you’re prioritizing converting leads with the most potential to become a customer. This is especially important for businesses seeing much higher CPLs, like financial services businesses and healthcare.

    Here are some tips to help:

    • Create buyer personas. Buyer personas can help you understand your ideal customers and their needs, pain points, and motivations. If a lead falls into one of your buyer personas, prioritize following up with and converting them.
    • Use lead scoring. Many lead management tools allow you to collect information that can help you automatically qualify a lead. Think about your highest value leads and what they have in common and then determine if there’s a way to include a qualifying question as part of your lead collection forms. This could be budget, whether or not they’re a homeowner, etc.
    • Automate follow-up. By automating the follow up process through your lead management tool, you can close more leads quicker. And if you’ve enabled lead scoring or other similar options, you can have your lead automation follow up with your highest value leads first.

    3. Use AI (the right way)

    Yes, AI is a super helpful resource when it comes to optimizing Google Ads. But you want to make sure you’re using it the right way and not letting it get the best of you.

    Here are some ways to use AI in your Google Ads:

    • Optimize landing pages and creative. Generative AI and predictive analytics can help you optimize ad creative and landing pages to capture and convert more potential leads.
    • Try automated bidding strategies. Google Ads Smart Bidding bid strategies can be a highly effective option if your account has ample conversion history, targeting and match types are not too restrictive, and budget is sufficient.
    • Run Performance Max (PMax) campaigns. PMax leverages Google’s AI-powered advertising to automatically generate ads based on your business goals and delivers them across all available Google placements. Running Search and PMax is a power pairing that can help you capture existing demand plus generate new demand and optimize performance across all Google channels.

    5. Complement with lower-funnel strategies

    Google Ads continues to be an effective way to drive leads and new customers. But it shouldn’t be the only channel you rely on. You can (and should) supplement your Google Ads strategy with lower-funnel strategies to help you build awareness and reach a new audience—oftentimes one that you don’t have to explicitly pay to get in front of.

    Here are some tips to keep in mind:

    • Complement with organic strategies. Content marketing, SEO, and inbound strategies are helping businesses generate lower cost leads organically. And these strategies help you own more space in search results, which can boost the effectiveness of your Google Ads campaigns.
    • Run CRM-based campaigns. Email, SMS, and loyalty programs are becoming more cost-effective compared to cold acquisition. Try sending text promotions, regular emails, and launching loyalty programs to bring in new customers.

    Keep Google Ads costs as low as possible

    While Google Ads costs will likely continue to rise, there are steps you can take to make sure you’re getting the most out of your budget. It’s important to keep a close eye on your Google Ads accounts so you can make tweaks and changes as needed and supplement your ad strategy with an effective full-funnel and cross-channel approach.

  • PPC for SaaS: 6 Essential Strategies for 2025

    Running PPC ads can burn through your SaaS marketing budget quickly—if you’re not using the right strategies and tactics.

    Many SaaS marketers overlook the tactics that can make the biggest impact on their campaigns. In this article, I’m going to share the six tactics I use to drive results for SaaS clients at Aimers so you can try them yourself to get the cutting edge and outperform the competition.

    Contents

    1. Use lead scoring to prioritize high-value prospects
    2. Avoid overreliance on a single platform
    3. Deploy display remarketing and RLSA campaigns strategically
    4. Use offline conversion tracking
    5. Conduct regular PPC audits
    6. Optimize your landing pages for conversions

    6 PPC tactics for SaaS marketers to try now

    Let’s dive into each of these tactics so you can start optimizing your SaaS PPC campaigns.

    1. Use lead scoring to prioritize high-value prospects

    Not all leads are created equal. Prioritize prospects based on their likelihood to convert or their potential value to your business.

    We all want to attract the biggest clients possible, so why not immediately pass data about lead quality to your advertising platforms? Additionally, at some point, you can try optimizing exclusively for top-tier leads. With sufficient data volume, the algorithms will start identifying the most relevant users for you.

    • Scoring metrics: Develop a scoring system based on user behavior (e.g., the information provided when submitting a form on your website, such as the company size, the job title, etc.).Lead scoring - lead scoring model matrix
    • Sales alignment: Work closely with the sales team to understand which scores correlate with high-qualityleads, and adjust your scoring criteria based on their feedback.
    • Dynamic retargeting: Use lead scores to adjust your PPC strategies, directing more resources on high-scoring leads.

    If your lead flow is limited, avoid excessive segmentation of leads into multiple categories. Over-segmentation can complicate data analysis and hinder the optimization of your campaigns.

    To ensure the effective performance of advertising algorithms, it’s important to meet the recommended conversion thresholds:

    • Meta requires at least 200 conversions per month per ad set.
    • Google and Microsoft need a minimum of 30 conversions per month per campaign.
    • LinkedIn advises at least 60 conversions per month per campaign.

    ⚡️ Is your Google Ads account set up for success? Download now >> The Last Guide to Google Ads Account Structure You’ll Ever Need

    2. Avoid overreliance on a single platform

    One of the common pitfalls I see with our clients is that they use several platforms but don’t regularly evaluate the effectiveness of each channel. For example, they continue to keep a 50/50 budget allocation between two networks, while a 70/30 split could dramatically boost their results.

    Another case is when companies “get stuck” on one or two platforms without exploring new ones. If you’re not testing new channels, you could lose out on potential opportunities and leads. It’s all about staying agile and data-driven.

    It’s important to constantly analyze your channel performance. Here are some of my recommendations to do this:

    • If your sales cycle is short, Google Analytics 4 may be enough.
    • For longer and more complex sales cycles with multiple stakeholders and sales calls, a good CRM is essential.
    • For businesses with a lot of traffic channels, consider investing in third-party tools with advanced attribution tracking.

    view of lead management in dash by localiq platform

    Dash by LocaliQ is an AI-powered lead management platform that allows you to track and follow-up with leads.

    By consistently using data to evaluate your channels and redistributing your budget, you will see tangible results. In my experience, you can expect around a 20% boost in just a few months!

    3. Deploy display remarketing and RLSA campaigns strategically

    For SaaS, decision-making cycles are usually long. Display remarketing and RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) can give you a competitive edge by targeting warm leads when they’re ready to act:

    • Segmentation and personalization: Tailor your ads based on the user’s previous interaction with your website. For instance, display different messages to users who abandoned the trial period and those who just viewed a pricing page.
    • Bid adjustments: Increase or decrease your bids for returning visitors based on their likelihood to convert, optimizing your ad spend for the best possible ROI.

    Here’s an extra tip from me: The audience in the SaaS niche is often quite narrow, and the number of website visitors is significantly smaller compared to the B2C segment. So when you’re launching RLSA, I recommend expanding your keyword list to include more generic search terms and using broad match.

     

    4. Use offline conversion tracking

    Understand which campaigns drive real revenue by linking your CRM with the ad platforms. With this integration, you can assess lead quality, uncover weak points in your campaigns, and identify which ad groups, audiences, or keywords generate leads but fail to convert into opportunities.

    The result? Smarter decisions, optimized ad spend, and a more effective PPC strategy.

    To fully capitalize on this integration, focus on three key types of reports that transform raw data into actionable insights:

    • Conversion tracking reportsThese reports show the path from ad click to sale, helping you pinpoint which ads and campaigns generate revenue. Use this data to optimize spending on what works best.
    • Customer segmentation reports: These reports segment your audience using CRM data like demographics, purchases, or behavior. Tailor campaigns to specific groups for better results.
    • Customer lifetime value reports: These reports use CRM insights to let you estimate the lifetime value of customers acquired through PPC.

    Clients often ask me why exporting customer lists from their CRM doesn’t yield the desired results in ad campaigns. The issue doesn’t lie in incorrect settings or integration errors, but in the specifics of the B2B sector.

    In B2B, most leads provide business emails (e.g., @company.com), which are rarely used to register personal accounts on platforms like Meta or Google.

     

    Example of a typical B2B SaaS lead form at demio.com

    Since these platforms rely on personal accounts to match customer lists, business emails often fail to find corresponding users. As a result, the potential audience for ad delivery is significantly smaller—or even nonexistent.

    Instead of just relying on customer lists, use other data sources like pixels or conversion events to track user actions on your website. This allows you to build audiences based on behavior rather than email addresses.

    5. Conduct regular PPC audits for constant optimization

    Even the most successful PPC campaigns require ongoing optimization. Regular audits help identify areas for improvement and ensure your campaigns align with youbusiness goals.

    • Comprehensive reviews: Regularly assess all aspects of your campaigns, including keyword selection, ad copy, audience targeting, and bidding strategies.
    • Growth opportunities: Use audits to spot chances for implementing new ad formats or tactics to boost performance.
    • Actionable insights: Turn audit findings into a clear plan of action, prioritizing changes that will have the biggest impact.

    If you are not sure where to start your audit, you can use a free Google Ads Optimization Checklist for SaaS that my team has developed. You can also run WordStream’s Free Google Ads Grader to get an instant audit of your account.

    google ads audit checklist

    6. Optimize your landing pages for conversions

    Your ad strategy might be brilliant. But if your landing page does not convert, you won’t see good results. A user’s journey doesn’t end at clicking the ad—it’s only successful when it ends in a conversion.

    If you want outstanding Google Ads results, focus ooptimizing your landing pages for conversions:

    • Page speed optimization: Use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to ensure your landing pages load quickly. Even a second’s delay can significantly reduce conversions.
    • A/B testing: Systematically test variations of your landing page elements (like CTA buttons, images, and headlines) to determine what resonates best with your audience.
    • User experience: Enhance the user journey by focusing on intuitive design and clear navigation paths that guide visitors towards conversion actions.

    We used these best practices to optimize one landing page and were able to get a 148% increase in conversion rate!

    example of before and after a landing page optimization done by aimers to increase cro

    Thoughtful design and data-driven landing page optimization will drive measurable outcomes for your PPC, so don’t overlook this aspect.

    🚀 Get the guide >> How to Make Great Landing Pages (with Crazy High Conversions)

    Use these tactics for your next SaaS PPC campaign

    Mastering the nuances of PPC is essential if you want your campaigns to deliver remarkable ROI for your SaaS business. The six tactics I’ve shared here can serve as a starting point for your journey that you can begin implementing straight away. However, I also advise you not to stop here and explore more cutting-edge PPC advice to keep constantly improving your performance.

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