• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 14, 2022

The cost per lead has increased significantly, with 21 of 23 industries seeing an increase year-over-year.

The average overall increase — 19% — is significantly higher than last year’s increase of 5%, in contrast to 2020’s decrease of 4%, but similar to 2019’s increase of 21%, according to a benchmark study from WordStream by LOCALiQ.

The Google Ads benchmark report shows that the industries experiencing the most difficulty include Arts & Entertainment, up 134%; Travel, up 69%; and Furniture, up 54%. Industries in which the cost per lead fell include Finance & Insurance, down 2%; and Education and Instruction, down 29%.

The Google Ads industry benchmarks report provides the average click-through rate (CTR), cost-per-click (CPC), conversion rate (CVR), and cost per lead (CPL) for 23 industries.

Inflation is impacting conversion rates. Inflation could be bringing down conversion rates and driving up the cost per lead, according to the data.

Conversion rates have fell significantly. Some 91% of industries saw a decrease in conversion rate, with an average overall decrease of 14%. While this is a stronger decrease than last year, it is not far off from 2019’s 12% decrease.

Cost-per-click increased slightly, with about 57% of the industries analyzed experiencing an increase in CPC, with an average overall increase of 2%.

This is in contrast to 2020 and 2021 which saw decreases in CPC (-4% and -1% respectively), but comparable to 2019 when there was a 6% increase.

CTRs have remained stable. About 78% of the industries analyzed in the report saw an increase in CTR year-over-year, there was no overall average change. This is the first time since 2019 that CTR has not increased.

Analysts pulled the data from more than 79,000 LocaliQ client campaign cycles running search ads from October 2021 through September 2022. 

The platform dynamically shifts budget between search channels on a campaign-by-campaign basis, but in aggregate, approximately 80% to 85% of the budget is allotted to Google and 15% to 20% to Microsoft. Each business category includes a minimum of 250 campaign cycles.