How it works
How to plan your PPC budget
Set your target and CPC
Enter how many clicks or conversions you want, along with your average cost per click. If you don't know your CPC yet, Google Ads Keyword Planner gives estimates by industry.
Add your conversion rate
This is the percentage of clicks that turn into a sale or lead. Average ecommerce conversion rate from ads is about 2% to 3%. If yours is higher, you will need fewer clicks to hit your goal.
Review your budget and cost per acquisition
The calculator shows your total monthly ad spend and what each conversion costs. Compare the cost per acquisition against your average order value to see if the math works.
How to get more from your ad budget
These aren't hacks. They are the fundamentals that separate profitable campaigns from money pits.
Fix your landing page first
Doubling your conversion rate from 2% to 4% cuts your CPA in half without spending an extra dollar on ads. Before you increase budget, make sure the page you are sending traffic to actually converts.
Start small and scale what works
Begin with $20 to $50 per day across a few ad groups. After two weeks you will know which keywords and audiences actually convert. Then shift budget to the winners and cut the rest.
Use negative keywords aggressively
If you sell premium leather bags, you don't want clicks from people searching for 'cheap bags' or 'free bags.' Negative keywords stop you from paying for clicks that were never going to buy.
Factor in customer lifetime value
A $50 CPA looks bad on a $60 first order. But if that customer comes back 4 more times over the next year, the real value is $300 and that $50 acquisition cost looks very different.
Don't spread budget too thin
Running 20 campaigns with $5 per day each gives you almost no data to optimize. It is better to run 3 to 5 campaigns with enough budget to generate at least 10 to 15 clicks per day.
Check performance by device and time
You might find that mobile clicks convert at half the rate of desktop, or that conversions drop off after 9 PM. Adjust bids by device and schedule to put more money where it actually works.
More free tools
All tools →- ROAS calculatorReturn on ad spend for Meta, Google or TikTok campaigns.
- Facebook Ads ROAS calculatorROAS, CPA and profit on ad spend for Meta campaigns.
- Google Shopping ROAS calculatorROAS, CPC and CPA for Shopping and Performance Max.
- TikTok Ads ROAS calculatorROAS, CPA and profit on ad spend for TikTok campaigns.
FAQ
Questions, answered
There's no universal number. A good starting point is to work backwards from your goal. If you want 50 sales per month and your conversion rate is 2.5%, you need 2,000 clicks. At $1.50 CPC, that's $3,000 per month. The calculator does this math for you.
It varies wildly by industry. Ecommerce averages around $1.16 on Google Ads. Legal services can be $6 to $9. Insurance keywords go even higher. What matters isn't the CPC itself but whether the revenue per conversion exceeds your cost per acquisition.
Use your actual conversion rate if you have it from past campaigns. If you're just starting out, 2% to 3% is a reasonable estimate for ecommerce Google Ads. Facebook and Instagram ads tend to run slightly lower, around 1% to 2% for cold traffic. Adjust as you collect real data.
CPC is what you pay per click. CPA is what you pay per conversion. If your CPC is $2 and your conversion rate is 4%, your CPA is $50 because it takes about 25 clicks to get one sale. CPA is the number that tells you whether your ads are actually profitable.
Google Ads uses daily budgets, but they can spend up to twice your daily limit on busy days and compensate on slow days. Think in monthly terms for planning, then divide by 30 for your daily setting. If you want to spend $1,500 a month, set your daily budget to $50.
If your campaigns are running out of budget before noon, or if you're getting fewer than 10 clicks per day per ad group, your budget is probably too small to generate useful data. You need enough volume to see what's working. Fewer than 100 clicks a week makes it hard to optimize anything.
Yes, but you need to be very focused. With $500 a month, you can't target broad keywords. Pick 5 to 10 highly specific long-tail keywords with clear purchase intent. Something like 'buy organic cotton baby blanket' converts much better than just 'baby blanket' and usually costs less per click.
Massively. At a 1% conversion rate you need 100 clicks per sale. At 4% you only need 25. With a $2 CPC, that's the difference between $200 per sale and $50 per sale. Improving your conversion rate is often cheaper than increasing your ad budget, and it has the same effect on revenue.
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