I received an interesting article confirming my and my clients’ suspicions that the cost per click (CPC) for AdWords has been rising considerably over the last few years and how it breaks down between major search engines.

Google AdWords

In the article from The Adgooroo blog last week, it shows how costs are rising per industry category.  Legal and automotive show rises of 50% and 45% respectively.  The financial industry only had a 9% increase, but overall the CPC rise averaged 26% across the board.

 

Yahoo! and Bing

The average CPC did rise in Yahoo! and Bing as well, but notice the difference in each industrial category is much greater than in Google AdWords.  You actually see a decrease in prices for Home & Garden, Telecomm, and Travel categories.

 

Comparison

Google market share has increased over this same time period which should be considered when evaluating your industry data from this study.  With this comes Google’s ability to charge a premium for the increased exposure in their network.

Bing is a lower cost with less exposure, and Google is more due to the competition to get in front of all their traffic.  This is where it is very important to follow through and attribute your traffic properly to determine your ROI.  A/B testing is also very important to make the most of your ad spend on either network.