What the Channable Google Ads benchmark found
Channable published its Google Ads Benchmark on July 12, 2026, showing cost-per-click on Shopping and Performance Max campaigns rose 15% between June 2025 and June 2026 while average return on ad spend fell 46% on Performance Max and 43% on Standard Shopping. The data covers 1.38 billion euros in verified spend across more than 10,000 European advertisers.
The numbers behind rising Google Ads costs in 2026
Every efficiency measure in the benchmark moved the wrong way for advertisers. Cost-per-acquisition rose 1.44 euros on Performance Max and 1.94 euros on Shopping campaigns. Conversion rates on Performance Max slipped 0.11 percentage points, which compounds with pricier clicks to produce the sharper ROAS decline.
Seasonality adds a budgeting warning. Ad spend in Q4 2025 ran 47.9% higher than in Q1, and cost-per-click ran 9.1% higher. A budget calibrated to first-quarter competition will not stretch through the fourth quarter.
The pressure is uneven. Electronics and Tech and Health and Beauty were the most expensive verticals on Performance Max at 0.56 euros per click, 44% above Fashion at 0.39 euros. Sports and Leisure posted the steepest efficiency drop, with ROAS falling 90% on Performance Max and 142% on Shopping year over year. By market, Hungary’s costs rose 42.1% and the Czech Republic’s 34.8%, both driven by new advertisers entering auctions that used to carry low floor prices.
Channable attributes the squeeze to three forces: new entrants bidding up previously cheap markets, Performance Max consolidating auction competition across Google’s surfaces, and a widening gap between advertisers with clean product data and those without. “The brands feeling this most acutely treated Google Ads as a budget line when they should have approached it as key data infrastructure,” said Stefan Hospes, Channable co-founder and chief product officer.
The benchmark uses medians, requires at least ten independent merchants per segment, and caps any single business at 25% of a segment.
Where the Channable benchmark data comes from
Channable, the Utrecht-based feed management platform serving more than 17,000 brands and agencies, published the benchmark and findings on July 12, 2026. PPC Land reported the analysis the same day, including the vertical and country breakdowns.
Why Google Ads cost inflation matters for B2B advertisers
The Channable data describes European e-commerce accounts, but the mechanics hit B2B advertisers in the same auctions. Two Google bidding changes land in the middle of this cost curve: the company is pushing a bidding target change on August 17 that will lift some campaign CPA targets, shortly after it restored Target CPA and Target ROAS as standalone bidding strategies. B2B paid search was already expensive before this inflation: the TripleDart 2026 SaaS PPC benchmark documented how hard SaaS teams work to hold MQL costs down. Rising CPCs plus automated bidding plus target changes mean B2B advertisers could absorb three separate cost increases before Black Friday competition adds a fourth.
Talking Shift
The 15% CPC increase is the same for everyone in the auction. The 46% ROAS decline is not. Channable’s own explanation for the gap is product data quality, because Google’s algorithm rewards structured, complete listings with better Quality Scores and cheaper visibility. Start Some Shift’s take: in 2026 the cheapest click goes to the brand with the cleanest data, and that work happens months before the auction. For established B2B brands, the equivalent of a clean product feed is clean structured content: precise naming, consistent categorization, and machine-readable proof. Brands that treat their data layer as strategy will buy attention at a discount to competitors who treat media as a line item.
What B2B marketers should do about rising Google Ads costs
Every Google auction places your ad directly beside your closest competitors, so these moves decide whose listing wins the click at the new prices.
- Rebuild Q4 budgets on Q4 math, since spend ran 47.9% and CPC 9.1% above Q1 levels last year.
- Audit product and offer data quality now, because Channable’s data ties ROAS resilience to feed quality.
- Review every Target CPA and Target ROAS campaign before Google’s August 17 bidding change lifts targets.
- Benchmark your CPC and CPA against category medians instead of your own history.
- Sharpen ad copy and offers for the competitive slot, since rivals in the same auction face the same cost pressure.
- Shift budget toward channels and queries where your data advantage is provable, and defend brand terms.
What to watch next on Google Ads pricing
Watch whether Q4 2026 repeats last year’s 47.9% spend surge on top of already inflated clicks. Google’s August 17 bidding change is the nearest catalyst, and the first post-change benchmark data will show whether cost inflation accelerates into the holiday quarter.
