In December 2018, we conducted a large-scale study on the cost of a click in search ads from Yandex and Google. We started it to try to answer the question of potential customers “How much will it cost to click on my ad?”
The results do not confirm the misconception that advertising in Google Ads is cheaper than in Yandex.Direct. Cost per click often depends on geotargeting (in the regions it is much lower than in Moscow and St. Petersburg), and also, like competition, correlates with the socio-economic standard of living of residents: the higher it is, the more you will have to pay per click.
The numbers are not accurate and stable indicators, but the ratio of the cost per click in different systems is quite true, and the percentage difference in cost can be taken into account when planning advertising campaigns. The real cost per click will depend on many factors: the quality of the ad and sites, competition at the time of display, adjustments, and other parameters.
You will find a description of the research methodology at the bottom of the page.
Methodology
According to the services “Budget Prediction” and “Keyword Planner”, we studied the cost of a click and the predicted CTR of ads that win the auction in Google and Yandex search.
To obtain results, the same keywords were selected from both systems; in total, we compared data for 507,297 phrases. We did this with an eye on the fact that Yandex and Google use different semantic algorithms and determine the identity of key phrases in different ways. For example, the phrases “concrete with delivery” and “concrete delivery” are different from the point of view of Google, but identical from the point of view of the Yandex algorithm.
According to statistics, our results are reliable: the confidence interval is 99%, the margin of error (margin of error) is 1%. We chose the median as the average indicator: it is protected from negative influences and is not subject to distortion by outliers. For example, the cost per click for each of the nine key phrases is $ 10, and for one phrase it is $ 110. The median will be 10, and the arithmetic mean will be 20.
Prices are inclusive of 18% VAT.
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