The "Inflation" Myth: Why Your Google Ads Costs Are Actually Rising
The primary driver of rising Google Ads costs is a fundamental "Architecture and Intent Mismatch," where campaigns are set up to pay premium conversion-phase prices for low-intent, awareness-phase traffic.
For B2B companies specifically, this inflation signals an account design that fails to leverage deep, in-house knowledge of the complex customer journey and sales funnel.
You may have considered this question as you wrestled with a budget that seems to be delivering less value every quarter. It’s easy to blame the market, but what if the real problem is much closer to home?
The Specific Questions:
Why are our Google Ads costs (CPC/CPA) increasing year over year?
Are rising Google Ads costs due to market inflation, competition, or internal account issues?
How can we control rising customer acquisition costs (CAC)?
Why Your Google Ads Costs Are Rising (And How In-House B2B Teams Fix It)
What We’ll Cover
Diagnosing the "Intent Mismatch" that’s draining your budget.
Why the old agency architecture is failing your complex B2B funnel.
Where to shift your awareness-phase budget for cheaper clicks.
How to leverage your sales CRM data to capture high-intent users.
The three strategic moves that deliver immediate CAC control.
The Fatal Flaw: Paying Sales Price for an Introduction
Let's cut the fluff.
If your Google Ads costs are steadily increasing, it's not because Google is greedy or "the market" suddenly exploded overnight.
It’s almost always an architectural problem.
You are asking a campaign designed for immediate sales to handle the slow, complex work of brand awareness.
It's the digital equivalent of paying a closing attorney rate to an intern.
The B2B In-House Dilemma
This issue is particularly brutal for B2B companies that have recently moved PPC in-house.
Agencies often rely on a simple, high-volume structure that converts quickly for e-commerce.
That same structure completely fails when applied to B2B's multi-touch, six-month sales cycle.
When you take the account in-house, you inherit this bad architecture.
You also inherit the expectation of justifying every dollar to leadership who demand lower CAC.
The Cost-Intent Mismatch, Defined
This is the expensive trap of paying premium prices for low intent.
You are spending $15 per click on a generic term like "financial software solutions."
That user is just starting their research. They have no idea which vendor they like.
They are in the Awareness Phase browsing, not buying.
Yet, you're competing against rivals who are ready to buy, and you pay their price. That’s the mismatch.
🛠️ Restructuring for the B2B Funnel
The key to controlling cost is to stop treating all clicks the same. You need to align your budget to the user’s intent.
1. Stop Buying Generic Awareness on Search
For most B2B products, standalone, non-brand Search campaigns for generic industry terms are financial black holes.
The competition is too high, and the chance of an immediate form fill is too low.
Your in-house team has a secret weapon: deep knowledge of the ideal customer profile. Use it.
We need to move the budget where awareness is cheaper.
Shift to Demand Gen or YouTube: Target specific job titles, pain points, or "competitor X" audiences with short, simple video or image ads. This is cheap attention.
Creative Focus: Don't make Hollywood ads. Use realness like a quick screen share, a problem/solution clip, or a simple demo. Acquire traffic for pennies, not dollars.
2. Capture Intent With Brand & Signals
Once you've acquired that cheap awareness traffic, you need to capture their intent when they are finally ready to convert.
This is where your in-house expertise across the full funnel is indispensable.
Segment Your Audiences: Create audiances based on user behavior, not just visits (e.g., watched 75% of a product demo video, viewed the pricing page, etc.).
The Intent-Search Loop: Feed those high-intent audiences back into your Search campaigns. When they finally search for your brand or a highly specific, late-stage problem, you can measure the impact.
Leverage CRM Data: Integrate your sales CRM data to create "Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) signals. This feeds the platform more information about your customers so the bidding can mirror your most profitable customers.
3. Simplify and Segment Your Architecture
Your account architecture should directly mirror your sales funnel and not just a list of keywords.
Ditch the simple, one-campaign-for-everything approach.
| Campaign Type | Intent Level | Budget Goal | Success Metric |
|---|---|---|---|
| PMAX/Demand Gen | Low (Awareness) | Maximize Clicks/Views | Cost Per View/Engagement |
| Generic Search | Medium (Consideration) | Maximize Clicks | Low-Cost Lead Magnet Download |
| Brand Search | High (Conversion) | Maximize Conversions | High ROAS/Low CPA |
This structure ensures you are never paying a high conversion price for a low awareness click.
🎯 Practical Takeaway for Your Team
Your next move is to run a quick audit on your current spending.
Pull up your Search campaigns and look at the generic, non-brand keywords.
If you are spending 50% of your budget on generic terms that have a conversion rate under 1%, you don't have an inflation problem. You have an architecture problem.
You can immediately reallocate that 50% to cheaper channels (like Demand Gen) to fill the top of the funnel, and dramatically increase your conversion spend on high-intent, late-stage users.
Stop paying a sales price for an introduction.
Reallocate that budget now to fill your top-of-funnel with cheap attention, and use your in-house expertise to capture conversions when your customers are finally ready to buy. That's how B2B teams beat the market and control their CAC.
Need a second set of expert eyes to diagnose exactly where your intent mismatch is costing you?
My $750 Google Ads Audit is perfect for giving your in-house team a fast, clear, strategic roadmap. We stop the bleed and set you up for success, all without a long-term retainer commitment.
