B2B Google Search Ads Benchmark: Rising CPC, Falling CTRs, and Shrinking Budgets
TL;DR
This report shows the aggregated benchmarks from B2B companies with Google Ad spend in the period between August 2024 to July 2025.
Cost-per-clicks (CPCs) are climbing: from $4.13 (Aug 2024) to $5.34 (Jul 2025) → ~29% increase.
Click-through-rate (CTR) is falling: from 5.47% (Aug 2024) to 4.04% (Jul 2025) → ~26% decrease.
Budgets are shrinking: marketers are quietly shifting spend away from non-branded search.
We break down why this is happening and what you can actually do about it.
If you’ve been running B2B Google Ads this past year, you may have noticed that your money isn’t going as far as it used to. Fewer clicks (CTR -26%), higher costs (CPC +29%), and results that feel more unpredictable.
In our last benchmark post, we dug into ads targeting branded keywords in Google Search. This time, we’re turning our attention to Google Search Ads targeting non-branded keywords, the workhorse of most budgets.
In this post, we'll walk you through our findings taken from Dreamdata’s B2B Benchmarks Ad Performance and Ad Budget report. We explore the potential reasons behind this shift, and, most importantly, we’ll provide actionable countermeasures you can take.
The State of Non-Branded Google Search Ads: The B2B Benchmarks
Non-branded search plays a different role than branded search. It's not about targeting people that already know you.
It's about catching the people showing interest in something relevant to your company. That means wider targeting, more competition, and (unfortunately) more volatile pricing.
And the numbers right now, they ain’t looking great:
CPCs are climbing: up from $4.13 in Aug 2024 to $5.34 in Jul 2025 (+29%).
CTRs are falling: down from 5.47% to 4.04% (-26%).
At the same time, budgets in this area are steadily declining, dropping from 38.10% in August 2024 to 32.83% in July 2025.
Google non-branded search takes the lion share of the budget (an average of 35.53%), second only to LinkedIn, meaning that changes in CPC and CTR have a big impact on marketing budgets.
This begs the question: what’s causing these changes?
What's Driving Your Google Search Ad Costs Up?
There's probably no single cause for the shifts in CPC and CTR. But we can make some educated guesses based on what we're seeing across hundreds of B2B accounts.
It is clear that several issues could be colliding at once. Some are visible, some are in your control, some aren’t, and others are happening quietly behind the curtain.
On lower CTRs on Google Search Ads
A lower click-through rate means fewer people are engaging with your ads, even when they’re still being shown. Why are fewer people clicking than before? The answer lies in how both users and Google itself have changed.
AI Summaries: If your CTR is dwindling, AI Overviews (formerly Search Generative Experience) are the likely cause. A key reason is ad placement. If the AI Overview appears first, it pushes ad blocks further down the page. A lower position means fewer clicks, even if search volume is stable. Google is still testing layouts, so there is no consistent format yet. Ads can appear below, within (in US markets only, for now), or sometimes above the AI summary.
Generic ads: Your ad copy could be generic or misaligned with search intent. If you’re bidding on keywords with a broad match, your ads may be appearing to an irrelevant audience. For example, bidding on a keyword like "software" instead of something specific like "CRM software for large businesses." The person searching for "software" could want anything, so they're unlikely to click your very specific ad.
Not using ad extensions: If your competitors are making use of ad extensions (like sitelinks), and you’re not, your ads could become less visible and compelling. Give them a reason to want to click on your ads.
On rising CPCs of Google Search Ads
CPCs show the “supply side”, or what it costs to get remaining clicks. If your CTR falls, this impacts your immediate traffic because it drags down your Quality Score, making clicks more expensive.
Think of your Quality Score as the grade Google gives you for the relevancy of your ads. If your ads are relevant, you’re rewarded with cheaper clicks. If your ads are less relevant, you’re penalized with more expensive clicks.
For example, if you bid on the keyword “B2B attribution software” but your ad copy talks about “marketing tools,” users are less likely to click.
Three things impact this score: the expected CTR, whether your ad matches the search query, and whether the page they land on delivers on what the ad promised.
Beyond your ad's performance, click costs can increase for more reasons than your Quality Score:
Auto-applied changes: Google frequently “helps” by switching settings on in the background, like expanding keyword matches or applying new targeting. These changes can broaden your reach, but they also increase spend in ways you might not notice right away.
Click fraud or low-quality clicks: Not every click is a real person with purchase intent. Sometimes bots or even competitors click your ads, which burns the budget without delivering value.
Campaign overlap: If you’re running multiple campaigns (like Performance Max and Search), they can accidentally compete against each other for the same click. In practice, that means you’re bidding against yourself while driving up your own costs.
Manual bidding challenges: It’s tempting to want to keep control through manual CPC bidding. However, you’ll likely be prioritizing cheap clicks over conversions (note: branded search strategies will differ). Smart bidding like Maximize Conversions optimizes your bidding for conversions, based on using historical campaign data and live user signals. It can make mistakes but overall you’ll have a better result.
On Google Search Ad budgets falling
Budget shifts: Google (non-branded search) has the second largest budget spend. When clicks cost more and you’re getting less of them, it becomes harder to justify costs. The result? Marketers could be moving their money into different ad channels like LinkedIn.
Which brings us to the part you can actually control, how you can respond.
Practical Fixes For Your Expensive Non-Branded Google Search Ads
As Google expands AI-generated answers, there will likely be further CTR pressure. But even if industry trends are working against you, there are practical steps you can take to get more control over your campaigns.
How can you lower your CPC in Google Ads
Your CPC is impacted by your bid and your Quality Score. If you want your ad to rank first, you need to make sure that your bid is competitive and that you have a good Quality Score.
Improve your Quality Score:
Align your ad copy with keywords (if you bid on "marketing attribution," your headline should include those exact words).
Optimize landing page speed and for mobile (aim for <3 seconds load time).
Ensure your landing page content matches what you promise in your ad.
Use single-keyword ad groups (SKAGs) for maximum relevance. (Example: Instead of one ad group with 15 keywords, create 15 ad groups with 1 keyword each with for hyper-relevant ad copy).
Monitor what actually matters: Focusing only on CPC can be misleading, as a higher cost might lead to more profitable customers. The key is to connect ad spend to down-funnel results. When you can measure cost per qualified lead or cost per customer, you can optimize your campaigns for what actually drives revenue.
Reallocate strategically: If CPCs keep climbing despite your best efforts, it’s perhaps better to adjust than accept diminishing returns. Shift some spend toward channels where you see better return. Our recent benchmarks report showed that LinkedIn has a higher return on ad spend than Google.
How can you improve your CTR in Google Ads?
Higher CTRs signal to Google that your ads are relevant, which improves your Quality Score and reduces costs.
Target smarter keywords: Shift budget toward long-tail phrases that capture intent more precisely ("B2B attribution software for SaaS companies" vs. "attribution software"). On a technical level, this means using the right match types. Broad Match is often too unpredictable for a specific phrase. Phrase Match is good at capturing the core intent of a keyword and its close variations. For your best-performing long-tail queries, use Exact Match.
Use negative keywords to eliminate waste. Navigate to Keywords > Search terms, and analyze the list of actual queries that triggered your ads. Search terms for products you don’t sell, irrelevant queries, and keywords with the wrong intent should be added as a negative keyword (e.g., "free," "jobs," "reviews," "DIY").
Separate your keywords: Group keywords with different intent into separate ad groups. The long-tail keyword “what is marketing attribution" (informational) has a very different intent than “marketing attribution tool” (commercial).
Leverage all available ad extensions: Make your ad more than just a headline and two lines of text. Sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets make better use of the real estate of your ad, making it more eye-catching and informative. That extra detail can translate into higher CTRs.
Refresh creatives:
Test new headlines monthly or quarterly
Rotate value propositions ("Save time" vs. "Increase revenue" vs. "Reduce costs").
Update CTAs beyond "Learn More" (try "Get Free Demo," "See Pricing," "Compare Plans").
Include numbers and specifics ("Reduce reporting time by 75%" vs. "Save time").
Segment your targeting:
Break campaigns by company size (SMB vs. Enterprise audiences respond to different messaging).
Create separate campaigns for different funnel stages.
Use remarketing lists to show different ads to previous visitors
Geographic segmentation if your product has regional differences.
Final Thoughts
So what’s the takeaway? CPCs are up 29%, clicks are down (-26%) on Non-branded Google ads (between Aug 2024 and Jul 2025), and some of the causes are out of your control. AI will continue to disrupt your ad performance. But you can continue to focus on what you can control:
Reallocate budgets to higher-ROI channels
Optimize Quality Score by aligning ads, keywords, and landing pages
Refresh creative regularly to combat ad fatigue
Target precisely with keywords using exact or phrase match settings
Leverage ad extensions to improve CTRs
Do your benchmarks look different to what we’ve shared? That’s valuable too. Compare, contrast, and let us know what you see.
About the data
The data used to compile these insights is anonymised aggregated data* taken from all Dreamdata customers who have integrated Google Ads with Dreamdata (and who have not opted out of the Benchmarks). The data is from the last 12 months, starting August 2024 until July 2025.
* At Dreamdata we take data security and privacy very seriously. Dreamdata has processed only non-PII data for this study. The data insights are aggregated, and a minimum number of data points (accounts) has been introduced for every benchmark meaning it is not possible to identify individual companies. Only data from companies that have agreed to let us use data in benchmarks are included.
Frequently Asked Questions
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There’s no single number. It depends on your industry, geography, and keyword competitiveness. In B2B, Dreamdata’s benchmark data shows CPCs climbing significantly over the past year, which means $5+ clicks are becoming the norm.
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Several factors can push CPCs up: highly competitive keywords, a low Quality Score (meaning Google sees your ads or landing pages as less relevant), broad match keywords catching irrelevant searches, or even automated bidding strategies raising bids behind the scenes. The higher your competition and the weaker your Quality Score, the more you’ll pay.
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“Good” depends on the context. In B2B non-branded search, Dreamdata’s benchmark data shows a CTR of ~4%. Benchmarks are useful for context, but the real measure is whether your campaigns deliver ROI in your market and funnel.
