How Much Does It Cost to Run Google, YouTube, and Facebook Ads in 2020?
Updated: Mar 29, 2022
Internet advertising has become a top strategy for businesses across the world. Companies are leveraging the number of people on various internet platforms to promote their goods and services.
Also, full disclosure, this is a Mad Men gifs themed blog, (only felt fitting talking about advertising) so if you love Mad Men, you're in for a real treat 🤗
One apparent advantage of internet advertising is improved ROI. Since Covid-19, ad costs have dropped dramatically, and there have been more search queries than ever on Google.
But what will the average cost be for your business?
In this piece, we will look at the cost of advertising on Facebook, Google, and YouTube in 2020 to help you come up with a suitable budget. Read on;
How Much Does It Cost to Run Google Ads?
There is no simple answer to this question as it comes down to a couple of factors. Note that online advertising does not guarantee a set of results based on the amount one invests in advertising. If that were the case, the rule of thumb would have been “spend more, make more" in sales.
Some keywords are saturated on Google, and targetting them is expensive compared to less competitive niches.
It all comes down to search volume.
Bidding on PPC ads can cost just about anything depending on the competition. You cannot afford to bid with no guidance and try to be prudent about the whole strategy.
Let's describe this as a funnel.
It works like a funnel where the wide end captures everything, including generic keywords, and here, it is expensive to bid. As the funnel becomes narrower, long-tail keywords come into play, and they are more targeted, making it cheaper to bid. When bidding, try to stay away from the broad end of things and find keywords that allow you to tighten your focus for better results.
In laymen's terms, don't bid on "dog walker," but rather "dog walker [insert town name]."
The more localized your search, the cheaper it is to bid.
So how should you bid? What keywords? And how much? What is the industry average?
Keyword Research:
Find profitable keywords through Google's free keyword planner tool. Testing and iterating them. You MUST A/B test your ads. You might be surprised by the results.
Then, you can leverage PPC tools such as Wordstream that give you guidance on what the competition is focusing on to help you make more informed decisions.
How Much Should I Bid?
You can google how much it typically costs to advertise in your industry, (try googling CPC average for [x], x being your industry). Also remember that this amount is based on a national figure, not by region.
But that doesn't mean it'll be that much if your campaign isn't optimized properly.
You can never learn the dynamics until your advertisement goes live. Then and only then, you're able to make educated decisions based on the data.... anyone getting flashbacks of the scientific method here?
You will not get it right the first time. Set a dummy budget, say $200, and use this to learn. Divide the amount equally and invest it in different advertisement groups and combinations. Launch them and wait for some time, say a week to see how it goes.
Set a starter budget for the first two weeks, between $200-$300 (say, $30 a day).
From this starter campaign, you will get insight to work with and something that can inform the actual campaign.
You will know which ads were
too expensive,
too general,
non-effective,
and ones that brought quality leads.
The idea is to channel the funds from your underperforming advertisements to the best ones.
There is a delicate balance to this, as you still need to be mindful of your cash flow. However, when things start picking, do not be skeptical of spending $100 on an ad when it will bring double that in returns. If your vertical is roofing, for example, $200 on a lead is nothing compared to the ROI you on landing a new roofing job.
What Should My Budget Be After 2 Weeks of Data?
You should eventually be spending at least a minimum of $500 a month on Google ads. For local businesses, $750-$1000 is a great range.
Why so much?
The easiest way for us to explain this is it's like taking a survey:
You want the survey size to be large so that the data coming in is more qualified. More impressions, the more accurate the data. This allows for better optimizations.
You also need to keep in mind that your competitors are bidding against you for the same keywords in the same region and you need to show up above them.
Anyone who tells you that you can succeed with less than $500 a month in ad spend on Google is blowing smoke up your you know what. This is not like Yelp or Home Advisor where it's lead-based.
How Do I Lower CPC?
Yes, you should try to minimize the CPC (cost per click) as much as possible through optimizations.
The ads need to be maintained. This is not a set it and forget it type of marketing avenue.
Kyber Digital's reps, for example, look at our client's ads campaign every day to keep track of the best possible optimizations, such as:
Keyword optimizations
Ad Group Shifts
Market changes
Algorithm Changes
Impression Share
Quality Score
Anything Else I Should Know?
This article really isn't a Google Ads course, but some other things you'll want to set up to ensure you're monitoring ROI and optimizing the campaign properly:
Conversion Tracking
Call Tracking
Google Tag Manager
Custom Tags based on your business model
Price Take Away:
For less competitive, lower bidding markets:
Start with a budget of $30 / day for two weeks
After two weeks, increase the budget to $60 per day
Overwhelmed yet?
How Much Does It Cost to Run YouTube Advertisements?
YouTube has over 2 billion monthly users. (And yes, the majority of videos uploaded are still music videos.)
The amount you spend on a campaign depends on your daily budget. Many businesses set this at $10 or more. In most cases, you will pay on a cost per view rate. It is prudent to set a monthly or daily limit for this amount to avoid overspending.
So what's the advantage of YouTube?
If you're doing in-stream display ads, you only pay when someone watches 15 seconds or more of your video. That's HUGE, and why it's a greatly overlooked search engine tool.
The cost of a YouTube advertisement depends on the type, your bid, your bidding selecting, and targeting options.
The various types include;
Display ads appear to the right of the feature video and above the video suggestion list.
Overlay ads are semitransparent and appear on the bottom portion of the video.
Skippable videos can be skipped after five seconds. They are inserted before, within, or after the featured video.
No skippable ads are short videos that users must watch before they watch the main video.
Bumper ads last for six seconds and must be watched before watching the main video.
Sponsored cards show information that is relevant to your videos.
These ads have various payment options. The target audience determines how much an ad costs, in that you will end up paying more for a competitive ad spot.
You can never pay over the maximum bid that you set, just like in Google Ads ... (note to those who don't know, but Google owns YouTube and the ads are done IN the Google Ads platform).
Where To Start?
It is essential to understand how to set up a campaign that makes the most sense for your budget. Here are some quick tips;
Set the target audience
Prepare quality video ads
Keep your ads short and precise
Create relevant landing pages
How Much Should I Expect to Spend?
This question really depends on how aggressive you're trying to be with your campaign, and what you're trying to achieve.
To get more subscribers - $500 a month
To get more views on a video - $500 a month
To get inbound leads to your site- $1000 a month
These are somewhat conservative numbers but from what we've seen in our testing, this shows where you can find the best bang for your buck.
How Much Does It Cost to Run Facebook Ads?
Ah. The mighty Facebook... and the love/hate relationship we all have with it.
The cost of your Facebook ad campaign depends on the bidding model.
It is not all that different from the Cost per Click and Cost per thousand impressions.
What's the Average Cost of Running Facebook Ads?
(Note - these numbers are for a national average across all industries.)
If you use CPC, expect to pay an average of $0.97 per click. For CPM, you will pay an average of $7.19 per 1,000 impressions.
Alternative models include cost per like and cost per download, which costs $1.07 per like and $5.47 per download. Note that these are just averages, and there is no set amount. Your business might see higher or lower figures depending on other factors such as ad placement, niche, and target market, among others.
When setting a budget, try and understand how the Facebook bidding system works. Once you log into your Ad manager page, create a campaign, and select your daily budget. You will then choose the action you want to pay for, which could either be views, likes, clicks, or downloads. From here, you need to build your audience for enhanced targeting. The next step is to create the advertisement and then launch it.
Facebook assesses different ads based on various metrics to determine relevance. It then estimates the total ad value and delivers the winning ad.
The factors that determine the cost of these ads include;
Ad budget
Ad bid
Audience
Ad objective
Season
Niche
Ad Placement
Ad quality
All these factors can be broken down into various details that directly affect the cost of an ad. Once you understand them and see the ones that apply to you, it is easier to set up a successful campaign.
But alas, we are not here to teach you how to run Facebook ads. If you're looking for a great Facebook Ads course to run ads yourself, look to Funnel Consultant Society run by Dino Gomez, who teaches newbies how to run great Facebook campaigns.
Bottom-line
There is no golden figure that will guarantee you success when advertising on the mentioned platforms. You should focus more on the quality of your ads as opposed to the quantity.
The best way is to learn as much as you can from our previous campaigns and low performing ads, then improve the rest using this feedback. Once you learn the techniques and see what works best, you should be well on your way to a successful internet advertising campaign.
Kyber Digital
343 Harbor View
Forked River, NJ
08731
(215) 305-8769
If you are looking for a marketing firm that can help scale your business through smarter advertising methods, book a free consultation call with Kyber Digital today!
