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01 - The Brief
European ecommerce advertisers paid 15% more per Google Ads click this year
According to a benchmark from feed-management platform Channable, analysing €1.38 billion in ad spend across more than 10,000 European ecommerce advertisers, the average cost per click on Google Shopping and Performance Max campaigns rose 15% between June 2025 and June 2026, an increase of roughly €0.06 per click. On its own that sounds small, but it compounds across every campaign, every day.
Return on ad spend fell more than 40% over the same period
The same benchmark found return on ad spend dropped 43% on Standard Shopping campaigns and 46% on Performance Max. In other words, advertisers paid more per click and got less back for it. The decline is driven by the combination of rising click costs and slightly lower conversion rates, a squeeze from both ends at once.
The pressure is structural, not seasonal
Part of the rise is normal seasonal competition, the benchmark found Q4 click costs running 9.1% above the first quarter, with total ad spend nearly 48% higher. But the year-on-year trend points to something more lasting: more advertisers competing for the same inventory, heavier reliance on automated bidding, and less organic traffic to fall back on. For sellers, that means paid acquisition is quietly becoming a less efficient channel than it was a year ago.
02 — The Deep Dive
Why Google Ads is getting more expensive and less effective, and what to actually do about it
For most ecommerce sellers, paid search has been a dependable growth channel: put money in, get sales out, at a predictable ratio. The latest European benchmark data suggests that ratio has quietly shifted against you over the past year, and it is worth understanding why before deciding how to respond.
The headline numbers come from Channable's European ecommerce benchmark, built on €1.38 billion in verified ad spend across more than 10,000 advertisers. Between June 2025 and June 2026, the average cost per click on Google Shopping and Performance Max campaigns rose 15%, roughly €0.06 more per click. Over the same window, return on ad spend fell 43% on Standard Shopping and 46% on Performance Max.
Why clicks are getting more expensive
Three forces are pushing in the same direction. First, competition: more advertisers are bidding for the same inventory, and when demand for ad slots rises faster than supply, the price of each click climbs. Second, the shift to automated bidding. Google's Smart Bidding and Performance Max now drive the majority of ad spend, and because the algorithm optimises toward conversions rather than cheap clicks, it will willingly bid more for users it predicts are valuable, which pushes up average click costs even when your targets stay the same.
Third, and most structurally, the erosion of free organic traffic. Google's AI-generated search summaries (AI Overviews) increasingly answer queries directly on the results page, reducing the number of people who click through to any website at all. As that free traffic shrinks, more of the demand that used to arrive organically now has to be captured through paid channels, concentrating more competition, and more spend, into the auction.
Why the same click converts less
Rising click costs are only half the squeeze. The benchmark also found conversion rates edging down on Performance Max, which means each click is not just more expensive but slightly less likely to turn into a sale. When both move against you at once, cost per click up, conversion rate down, the effect on return on ad spend is multiplied rather than added, which is why a 15% rise in click cost can translate into a 40%-plus fall in ROAS rather than a modest one.
A 15% rise in click cost became a 40%-plus fall in return on ad spend. When cost per click rises and conversion rate falls at the same time, the two don't add, they multiply.
What this means for how you spend
The instinct when ROAS falls is often to spend more to hold the same volume. The data argues for the opposite discipline: treat paid search as a channel whose efficiency is declining, and focus on the levers that still move within your control. The benchmark's own framing is useful here, the click got more expensive, but the conversion rate is the part you can actually influence.
That points to the landing page, not the ad, as the highest-leverage place to work. If more expensive clicks are unavoidable, the way to protect your return is to convert a higher share of the clicks you are already paying for. Message match between ad and landing page, page speed, clear pricing, and a checkout that supports the local payment methods your market expects (a recurring theme in this newsletter) all do more for ROAS in this environment than chasing a lower cost per click that the auction may not let you reach.
The connection to everything else getting more expensive
For sellers shipping into the EU, this cost pressure does not arrive in isolation. It lands in the same year as the new €3 customs duty on low-value imports, the national handling fees several member states have introduced, and the broader rise in cross-border compliance costs this newsletter has covered over the past month. Acquisition is getting more expensive at the same time as fulfilment. That combination makes margin discipline, and knowing your real per-order economics, more important now than it was even six months ago.
Action plan, if you run paid search into the EU
Recheck your break-even ROAS against your actual margin. With landed costs rising from customs changes too, the ROAS that was profitable last year may not be now. Recalculate before you scale spend.
Put your effort into conversion rate, not just cost per click. The click price is largely set by the auction. The landing page, checkout, and message match are yours to control, and they are where the recoverable return sits.
Audit for local payment methods at checkout. A more expensive click that abandons at checkout because the buyer's preferred method is missing is the worst of both worlds. This matters more as clicks cost more.
Watch Performance Max separately from Shopping. The benchmark showed the steepest ROAS decline on Performance Max. If you run it, track its return in isolation rather than blended, so a weak channel is not hidden inside an average.
Don't over-react to seasonal spikes. Some of the cost rise is Q4 competition that recedes. Separate the structural trend from the seasonal one before making permanent budget cuts.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or marketing advice. Advertising benchmarks reflect aggregate data and individual account performance varies widely. Evaluate your own account metrics before making budget decisions.
03 — The Stack
Google Ads landing page and conversion tracking
Given this week's topic, the Stack covers the free tooling that helps on the part of paid search you can actually control: conversion.
Free tier available ✓GDPR configuration required ✓EU data handling controls ✓Conversion tracking ✓Landing page testing ✓
Google Analytics paired with Google Ads conversion tracking remains the baseline for seeing where clicks are lost between the ad and the sale, which is exactly the part of the funnel this week's data says is worth protecting. Clean conversion tracking also directly affects how well Smart Bidding performs, since the algorithm optimises against the signal it receives, incomplete tracking leads to worse bidding and higher effective costs.
The one limitation worth noting: for EU traffic, analytics and conversion tracking must be configured for GDPR compliance (consent mode, data retention settings) before you rely on the data. Out of the box, the default settings are not necessarily EU-compliant, and getting this wrong creates both a legal and a data-quality problem.
Not a sponsored placement. No affiliate relationship.
04 — The Number
15%
The rise in average cost per click for European ecommerce advertisers on Google Shopping and Performance Max between June 2025 and June 2026, about €0.06 more per click, while return on ad spend fell 43% on Standard Shopping and 46% on Performance Max.
Source: Channable eCommerce Google Ads Benchmark (€1.38 billion in ad spend, 10,000+ European advertisers), via Ecommerce News Europe, July 2026
The €0.06 per click sounds trivial until you multiply it across every click, every campaign, every day, and pair it with a return that fell by nearly half. Small per-unit increases in a channel you run continuously are exactly the kind of cost that erodes margin quietly, without ever showing up as a single alarming line item.
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Usage-based and hybrid pricing models are changing how B2B companies generate revenue — and creating new headaches for the finance teams behind them.
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