In our monthly survey into the cost of Google Adwords, we have found that the average cost of advertising on Google has fallen by about 10% from an average cost of $3.73, which when normalised for competition becomes $1.50, to $3.36 ($1.31). A slight fall in competition by 0.001 was matched by the fall in overall costs, indicating that the high Australian dollar has allowed Google to adjust down their algorithm for Adwords costing.
Every month we take a basket of 100 odd keywords, from “Mobile Phones” to “Bakery” and we look at the average CPC (cost per click) of advertising using that keywords. We look at the competition and cost, so we can multiply the two together to get a cost adjusted for competition. We then take that information and compare advertising in Australia to the UK and the US.
There are a few things that make this task a little cumbersome and prone to inaccuracies. One is the Google never seems to give the same keywords using their keyword tool. Each time we run this, a different set of keywords comes out even when we “force” the tool. This means we have to piece the information together by running several searches, and then removing all the information for the keywords that dont appear consistently.
The second thing is currency fluctuations. At the moment the Australian Dollar is very high against the US dollar, making it appear very cheap for Australian companies to advertise overseas.
You can see our raw data here.
A few things have remained constant since last month. You still get about 30% less value for money when you advertise in Australia compared to the US. When you normalise for competition, the average cost of advertising in Australia is $1.31, where it is $1.03 in the US. This basically means for all keywords, regardless of competition, Australian advertisers either bid more, or are squeezed up more by Google, than US advertisers.
The top 5 biggest falls in cost for Australia were “appliances, computers, books, insurance, pink mobile phones”, which also gives you an idea of the sorts of keywords we are using to base our data on.