Google Ads cost per click (CPC) rates are increasing across the board and across all industries. For charities, this creates a real and immediate challenge.
Budgets for digital marketing are often tight at the best of times. So rising Google Ads CPCs have the inevitable impact of lower return on ad spend. Rising Google Ads CPCs lower return on ad spend and, in turn, reduce the funds available for the causes those campaigns exist to support.
This can be especially challenging given recent changes at Meta that make conversion optimisation more difficult, meaning Google Ads plays a more central role in driving results.
That means difficult decisions need to be made around budgets. So if you’re in this situation or heading that way, your first priority should be reducing your cost per click.
Why are my CPCs higher?
Paying more per click than you should is rarely due to a single big mistake, so there is no quick fix. Costs creep up over time because campaigns drift, keywords broaden without intent checks, automation runs without clear signals, and landing pages no longer match what people are searching for.
Because Google now places greater emphasis on quality and faces increased competition across other inventory, advertisers can no longer afford to let this slide.
The good news is that lowering cost per click does not always need a rebuild or a bigger budget. Small, well-chosen changes can reset relevance and give Google better information to work with.
You can use our tips below in your Google Ad Grants, Grantspro and where relevant, paid Google Ads accounts.
Reducing CPCs in Google Ads Search campaigns
If you’re seeing high CPCs in Google Ads Search campaigns, optimising creative and reviewing and refining performance using data is the best way to address the issue.
Quality is key when it comes to ads
As Google themselves explain, you get no points here for being creative in a traditional sense. Instead, you should meet the criteria Google has set for a good advert.
Create responsive search ads with strong assets and relevance to your keywords and user intent, and a clear call to action.
Include enough relevant, clear headlines and descriptions so Google’s AI can assemble the best combinations.
You should also make use of all available assets, such as images and business information. Sitelinks and callout extensions improve visibility and engagement, so don’t forget to utilise these, too.
Extensions also have an impact on quality score. Including them increases the chance of a click, which increases click through rate, and that then directly affects this very important metric.
Review and refine performance
Once your ads are live, use campaign data to review performance against benchmarks and identify where CPCs are being driven up by poor relevance rather than low demand.
Conversions, conversion value, and ROAS should guide bid strategy decisions, but metrics like click-through rate and conversion rate are critical for identifying ads, keywords, or queries that are inflating CPCs without delivering value.
If a high-converting campaign is losing search impression share to rank, improving ad relevance and landing page alignment is often more effective than increasing bids.
Match ads and landing pages to keywords
Your ads and the landing pages (like donation pages or fundraiser sign up forms) that you’re sending traffic to should match your keywords as closely as they can.
For your high search intent keywords – ‘donate to charity’ terms, for example – this might mean creating new landing pages specifically tailored to your Google Ads.
Your keywords should be grouped by theme and you should be testing multiple ad versions in order to determine which assets work best.
You can improve your keyword list by analysing search terms and adding new relevant terms to your ad groups, as well as negative keywords to filter out irrelevant traffic.
Lowering CPCs in Performance Max campaigns
Because Performance Max campaigns use AI across bidding, creatives and attribution to maximise conversions, it is super important to give these campaigns enough data to operate effectively and enough time to optimise.
Here are the best ways to optimise your Performance Max campaigns:
- Use adequate data and audience signals – so that Google has a clear indication of who you’re trying to reach.
- Use customer match lists if possible – Healthcare charities are restricted under Google’s rules around health in personalised advertising and so won’t be able to use customer match lists, but use them if you can.
- Use general website visitors and donation funnel visitors – these are good data points to help Google Ads find potential donors.
- Let campaigns run for several weeks – so Google’s AI can gather enough performance data to optimise.
- Use quality images and videos – This is key as Performance Max campaigns are goal-based campaigns that reach customers across all Google inventory (Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Discover, Maps). So your assets should be designed for Performance Max in particular.
- Use rich product data for e-commerce goals with a Merchant Centre feed – like descriptions, images, availability and price. Use annotations for other important information, such as promotions and delivery. Add custom labels to help segment products and optimise results.
Google Shopping campaigns
Remember that Shopping campaigns use your Merchant Centre product data to show ads based on product attributes rather than keywords.
Performance should be monitored at product group level, using customisable columns and segmented reporting to understand metrics such as impressions, click-through rate and conversions. You can then adjust bids and product group structures based on this data.
Use conversion goals and Smart Bidding
This can include target return on ad spend.
Doing this will focus campaigns on the outcomes that matter to your charity, whether that’s donations, online sales from your shop, or registrations for fundraising events and challenges. This will help the system to optimise accordingly.
Add negative keywords
Shopping campaigns don’t require keywords for targeting, but you should be adding negative keywords to Shopping campaigns. These might be competitors’ names or products you don’t actually sell.
Negative keywords will make sure you’re not showing up for irrelevant search queries that could be eating up your budget and causing your average CPCs to rise. If you have a smaller budget, this is particularly important, as it will reserve your budget for search queries that are much more relevant to the products you’re trying to sell.
None of these are quick fixes
If you are heading into 2026 with rising costs, these are all great places to start. Optimising search, Shopping and Performance Max will put you in a stronger position before you touch budgets or bid limits.
But none of them are a quick fix. They’re deliberate shifts in how you structure, feed and review your campaigns. If you make them consistently, you give Google fewer reasons to waste spend and an incentive to reward you with cheaper, high-quality clicks.
They will also work more effectively than adding a max CPC bid limit or increasing your budgets.
Remember, Google’s focus is absolutely always on quality. If yours is, too, then you won’t go too far wrong.
