Data Studies
Paid search research on what clicks cost and how advertisers compete. Most studies use Google Ads Keyword Planner cost-per-click estimates for US keywords, nationally and by state, often set against Microsoft Ads keyword prices. Others use the Google Ads Transparency Center to count advertisers and ad formats, Bing search results to study ad copy and bidding on brand names, and Google Maps results to check for paid listings. Use them to benchmark your costs by industry and location, and to plan how you structure and budget campaigns.
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The most expensive auto dealer Google Ads keyword costs $8.76 a click, and not one reaches $10. The average auto dealer click costs $1.68, 84% less than the $10.82 average across 23 industries, even though 78% of auto dealer keywords draw heavy advertiser competition.
A Google Ads click on "home security company" costs $45.65, 22 times the $2.06 paid for the median home security keyword. Home security clicks average $4.60, 58% less than the $10.82 average across 23 industries, but the searches from people ready to buy a system cost many times more.
A Google Ads click on "cross country movers near me" costs $98.17, and the 11 most expensive moving keywords are all long-distance searches. Moving company clicks average $18.86, 1.7 times the $10.82 average across 23 industries, making moving the 5th most expensive of the 23.
Solar installers advertising in Pennsylvania pay 75% more per Google Ads click than the national price for the same keywords, while Georgia pays 64% less. Nationally, a solar click costs $9.35 on average, 14% less than the $10.82 average across 23 industries, but searches for an installer cost two to six times that.
Pest control Google Ads keywords containing "near me" cost $28.16 per click on average, more than three times the $8.73 for other pest control keywords. "pest control near me" alone is searched 165,000 times a month at $32.48 a click, while the average pest control click costs $9.69.
Searches for accounting and tax keywords were 14 times higher in February 2026 than in November 2025, the biggest seasonal swing of 23 industries, against 2.8 times for HVAC, the next most seasonal. The clicks are expensive too: an accounting Google Ads click costs $14.25 on average, 1.3 times the $10.82 average across 23 industries.
Only 10% of the ads in the top spot on search results use all 30 characters allowed in their first headline. The average top ad's first headline is 24.2 characters long, leaving five or six characters of the most visible text in paid search unused.
40.4% of the advertisers showing Google ads in Canadian search results are verified in the US, close behind the 44.2% based in Canada, and US advertisers account for 59.8% of those advertisers' ads.
The ads that win the top spot on a search results page share one habit: 83.1% show sitelinks, the extra links under an ad. They do not share the habit copywriting advice pushes hardest: 71% of top-position search ads have no number in the headline, and 13.3% still send the click to a homepage instead of a page about the search.
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