Key takeaways
Why are Google Ads click prices rising?
It depends on your market, your campaign type and your period. For European online shops, Channable's data points up: the click price for Shopping and Performance Max rose by 15%, or €0.06, between June 2025 and June 2026. Three causes are named. Two are beyond a single advertiser's control, the third, your product data, is not.
The source is Channable's eCommerce Google Ads Benchmark, published in July 2026 (press release). It covers €1.38 billion in ad spend of more than 10,000 merchants and reports medians. Channable makes software for product data, so keep in mind who is telling you this. These figures cover the EU and the EEA only, not the US.
The three causes Channable gives are these:
- New advertisers enter from markets with low minimum prices and push into the auctions.
- Performance Max bundles competition in the auctions, so more bidders meet in the same places.
- A growing gap between clean and poor product data: shops with good feeds pull ahead.
Seasonality matters too. In the fourth quarter of 2025, ad spend was 47.9% above the first quarter and the click price was 9.1% higher. Channable's advice is to prepare feed and budget for the fourth quarter, then the rise is easier to absorb. The same report shows that ROAS fell by 46% for Performance Max and by 43% for standard Shopping. That is the reason to care about every cent per click.
The US looks different. In the Tinuiti Digital Ads Benchmark, reported by eMarketer on October 19, 2026, click prices on Google Search rose by 0% on average from Q3 2025 to Q2 2026, and by 4% in the third quarter of 2026 compared with the year before. Tinuiti links this to Amazon pulling out of most US Shopping auctions in July 2025, an effect on prices that is fading. This is a different market, a different campaign type and a different period, so the two reports are no proof for each other. They show that the answer depends on where you advertise.
Before you search for a cause, rule out an illusion. Your average click price can rise while no single price moves. Say campaign A gets 100 clicks at €0.40 and campaign B gets 100 clicks at €1.20, so your average is €0.80. Next month A gets 50 clicks and B gets 150, at the same prices. Your average is now €1.00. Nothing got more expensive, only the mix shifted. Compare price per click inside each campaign and device, not just the account average.
What does a real click cost you?
A real click costs the money you pay in total, divided by the number of clicks that were real. If some of the clicks you pay for are invalid, the divisor shrinks while the bill stays the same. The price on your invoice and the price of a real click are then two different numbers.
A small example. You buy 100 clicks at €1 each and pay €100. Five of them are invalid but were still charged. You paid €100 for 95 real clicks, so a real click cost you €1.05. If the five clicks drop out, you pay €95 for 95 real clicks, and a real click costs €1.00.
In words: the more invalid clicks you pay for, the more every real click costs you, and the gap between invoice price and real price grows with the share of invalid clicks. Fewer invalid clicks do not change the price in the auction. They change what is left over per real visitor.
This is the angle that the guides on rising click prices we read skip. Those guides cover quality score, search terms, feeds and bids, which are all worth doing. They do not ask how many of your paid clicks are worth anything at all.
How much of the rise can you absorb?
Only a part, and the numbers below are a vendor's averages. The figures come from Lunio's retail report (status August 14, 2026): 414 million clicks from 88 retail accounts, Q4 2025 to Q2 2026. Lunio sells click protection itself. The accounts ran in monitor-only mode, so these are clicks that got past Google's own filters. The article does not name the accounts' countries.
If you pay for a share p of invalid clicks, a real click costs you p / (100 minus p) more than it needs to. Here is the result:
| Lunio average | Invalid clicks | A real click costs you more by |
|---|---|---|
| Search | 4.73% | 5.0% |
| All channels | 5.0% | 5.3% |
| Shopping | 6.33% | 6.8% |
Calculation from Lunio's averages, not a measurement from your account.
If the invalid clicks drop out, the price per real click falls by the share itself, so by 4.7% to 6.3%. Set that next to the rise of 15% in Channable's data. It catches a piece of it, not all of it. Lunio's accounts and Channable's merchants are not the same group, so this is a rough comparison.
It is also only an average. Your account may sit above or below it. If you already run click protection, the share you still pay for is smaller. Credits that Google issues later shrink the gap as well. And the Lunio figures come from a vendor of exactly this kind of tool. That is why the honest summary is small: invalid clicks are a smaller part of your click price problem, and you can do something about that part.
What brings the click price itself down?
Other levers, and they matter more. seacashback does not replace any of them. They address the price you pay in the auction, which click protection does not touch.
- Search terms report and negative keywords: look at which queries trigger your ads, and exclude those that never buy.
- Ad and landing page that fit the search term: a better match usually earns you a better quality rating, and that tends to help your price per click.
- Clean product data: in Channable's reading, the gap between clean and poor feeds is one of the causes of the rise. Titles, categories and identifiers are worth the work.
- Realistic bid targets: a target that is too aggressive pushes you into expensive auctions you do not win profitably.
- Segments by device and location: check whether one device or region eats budget without selling, and adjust.
Work through this list first. Then look at the share of your clicks that were never real visitors.
How do you check for invalid clicks in your account?
Start with what Google already shows you. Three places are worth a look, and none costs money.
- Column "Invalid clicks" in the campaign table. It shows only what Google already filters out. Those clicks are not charged.
- Report on credits for invalid activity, where Google lists what it corrected after the fact.
- Billing, summary, adjustments: credits appear on your invoices as a negative line "Invalid activity". Google gives credits when appropriate and possible. This is described on Google's help page on invalid traffic.
Google also points out that third-party tools often flag clicks that Google has already filtered out. So a high number in an outside tool does not by itself mean that you paid for these clicks. Compare it with the adjustments on your invoice before you draw a conclusion.
When is a review request worth it?
When you can show a pattern and the clicks fall within the last 60 days. You can ask Google for a review through the click quality form. Google decides. It does not confirm individual clicks, and a request is no promise of a credit.
Prepare the following, so that your request is concrete:
- your customer ID and the exact period
- campaign and ad group names
- suspicious keywords
- server logs with IP addresses, devices and GCLIDs
The logs are the hard part. You only have them for the days you stored them, and the 60 days keep running. Start keeping click data now, and not only after you notice something odd.
How does seacashback help you with this?
seacashback checks the clicks on your landing pages, excludes detected bots at account level and documents invalid clicks, so you can report them to Google. You see up front how much of your budget is affected, and then you decide.
It dampens the cost of a real click, because invalid clicks drop out. It does not lower the price in the Google auction, and it explains only a small part of the rise described above. Read how it works under How it works, and see a real example in the case study. For data on invalid clicks in shops, see the Click Protection Report 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Does Google credit invalid clicks automatically?
Partly. Google does not charge for invalid traffic it detects before billing. If it detects it later, it issues a credit when appropriate and possible. For anything else you can request a review, and Google decides.
Do invalid clicks explain why my click prices rise?
Only a small part. They raise what a real click costs you, but the price in the auction rises for other reasons, such as more competition and the quality of your product data.
Can I lower my click prices with click protection?
No. Click protection does not change the price in the auction. It reduces what a real click costs you at the end, because invalid clicks that you pay for drop out.
How far back can I ask Google for a review?
A review request covers the last 60 days. Prepare customer ID, exact period, campaign and ad group names, suspicious keywords and your server logs.