01
Work out the maximum affordable CPC first
Gross-margin customer value multiplied by lead rate and close rate. Until you know it, no click price is expensive or cheap.
Business playbook · 10 tactics
10 Ways to Cut Cost Per Acquisition
When clicks cost $50, the funnel matters more than the bid.
02
Add negatives before touching bids
On expensive terms one week of irrelevant broad-match traffic costs more than a month of waste on cheap keywords.
03
Bid to a target acquisition cost, not a maximum click price
You do not care what a click costs. You care what a customer costs, and only one of those pays the bills.
04
Improve the landing page to lower the click price
Relevance and page experience feed the quality score, which literally reduces what you pay for the same position.
05
Bid the question, not the head term
The expensive head term has a cheap long-tail equivalent asked by someone deeper in the same problem.
06
Fix the answer rate before raising budget
Missed calls waste the click you already paid for. In high-value services this single fix outperforms any bidding change.
07
Measure close rate from the CRM, not from the platform
Platform conversions count form fills. Only the CRM knows which of those became revenue.
08
Separate branded and non-branded spend
Branded traffic converts far better and flatters blended numbers until it hides a failing acquisition channel.
09
Check the wasted-spend share monthly
Irrelevant clicks are a percentage that quietly grows. It is the cheapest thing on this list to fix.
10
Fix unit economics before scaling
Growth multiplies whatever your economics already are. Doubling budget on a broken funnel doubles the loss.
Put it to work
Calculators for these tactics
Business & Tech
Ad Platform CAC Comparison Calculator
Compare acquisition cost across platforms once CPC, conversion and close rate are counted.
Business & TechCAC & LTV Calculator
Customer acquisition cost, lifetime value and the ratio investors ask about.
Business & TechAd Revenue & CPM Calculator
Model publisher revenue from pageviews, fill rate, CPM and click value.
Business & TechAnswering Service ROI Calculator
What missed calls cost, and whether a 24/7 service pays for itself.
Estimates, not advice. Every figure here is produced from the inputs you enter and the formula printed on the page. Rules differ by state, carrier, lender and contract, so use these numbers to prepare for a conversation with a qualified professional rather than to replace one. See our full disclaimer.