Google search ad spending in the US increased 17% year-over-year in Q1 2024. Click growth continued to decline, reaching 4% year-over-year (compared to 8% in Q4 2023).
Cost per click continues to rise: up 13% year-over-year (compared to a 9% year-over-year increase in 4Q 2023).
CPC increase. This was most affected overall by an increase in CPC for Shopping ads (both standard and PMax).
CPC increased 13%, a big jump from the 6% year-over-year increase in CPC in Q4 2023. This led to a 21% increase in ad spend year-over-year in Q1 2024, compared to the increase in 13% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024.
google search CPCs have increased 40-50% for retailers in the last five years.
The typical retail brand that runs Google search ads has seen its average CPC increase by 40-50% compared to five years ago. From the first quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2024, CPCs for Google retail search ads increased by about 20% for the average advertiser.
PMax. Top performing campaigns improve quarter to quarter.
The relative performance of PMax campaigns compared to Standard Shopping Campaigns (SSC) improved across most key metrics from quarter to quarter. Conversion rate was only 5% lower than SSC, compared to 13% worse last year and 17% worse in 4Q 2023. Max CPC is 2% better than CPC of SSC, compared to 11% worse in 4Q 2023.
PMax continues to play a prominent role in advertising on Google:
During the peak shopping season in Q4 2023, 91% of retailers running shopping ads on Google ran PMax campaigns, which remained stable in Q1 2024. On average, 89% of Google Shopping advertisers ran PMax campaigns in Q1 2024, up from an average of 82% in Q1 2023.
Why we care: CPCs increase while clicks decrease. This is bad news for advertisers. Especially since Google had reportedly raised ad prices to meet the targets.
Methodology of the report. The Tinuiti Digital Ads Benchmark Report uses anonymized performance data from advertising programs managed by Tinuiti. The data is based on active programs with consistent strategies. All figures represent the growth of the same client and are not intended to officially reflect the performance of any specific advertising platform or the experiences of each advertiser.
About Tinuiti. Tinuiti is a large independent performance marketing company with over 1,000 employees managing $4 billion in digital media.
Add Search Engine Land to your Google News feed. 
New in Search Engine Land
About the author
Anu Adegbola has been a paid media editor for Search Engine Land since 2024. She covers paid search, paid social, retail media, video and more.
In 2008, Anu’s career began with
deliver digital marketing campaigns (mainly but not exclusively Paid Search) by creating strategies, maximizing ROI, automating repetitive processes and making all marketing departments efficient through inspiring leadership both on the agency, client and marketing technology side.
Outside of Search Engine Land article editing, she is the founder of the PPC networking event: PPC Live, host of weekly podcast PPCChat Roundup, ibRand Evangelist at ClickTech.
He is also an international speaker with some of the stages he has presented being SMX (USA), SMX (Munich), Friends of Search (Amsterdam), brightonSEO, The Marketing Meetup, HeroConf (PPC Hero), SearchLove, BiddableWorld, SESLondon, PPC Live Chat, AdWorld Experience (Bologna) and more.
