The short version. When you search for a Google Ads benchmark, you get one tidy number: the average CPC, the average click-through rate. That number is close to useless, because the spread between industries is enormous. In a corpus of real accounts, the median cost per click ranged 8.4x between the cheapest and most expensive vertical, and the median click-through rate ranged about 145x.
Benchmarks are a corridor, not a point. The only useful comparison is against accounts in your own category, not against a blended industry average.
The instinct is reasonable: you want to know if your numbers are good, so you look up the average. The problem is that averaging across industries hides the only thing that matters, which is the range. This is the averaging trap, the same reason the average depth of a river tells you nothing about whether you will drown crossing it.
Measured across ten consumer-utility verticals, the median blended CPC spanned 8.4x, from about $0.24 in the cheapest category to $2.03 in the most expensive. Click-through rate was even wider: a roughly 145x spread, from 0.09% in one vertical to 13.04% in another. Those are not outliers. They are medians, the middle of each category. The blended average that most benchmark articles publish sits somewhere in that gap, describing no real account at all.
Good is category-relative. A 2% click-through rate is excellent in the visa vertical, where the median is 0.09%, and it is a red flag in the quiz vertical, where the median is 13%. A $1 CPC is expensive in a category whose median is $0.24 and a bargain in one whose median is $2.03. Judge your account against the corridor of its own niche, and ignore the blended number entirely.
This is also why the industry benchmark you found is quietly worthless for a decision. It was built by averaging categories that have nothing in common, so it cannot tell you whether your CPC is high for what you sell. Only the distribution within your category can.
Profit Forensics
I examine one week of your Google Ads account and find the money it is losing, or prove it is clean. Signed, either way. For accounts spending $50,000 or more per month.
What is a good CPC in Google Ads?
There is no single good CPC. Median cost per click varies 8.4x between industries, from about $0.24 to $2.03 in this corpus. A CPC is only high or low relative to your own category, so compare against accounts in your niche, not a blended average.
What is a good click-through rate in Google Ads?
It depends entirely on the category. Median CTR ranges about 145x between verticals, from 0.09% to 13.04%. A 2% CTR is excellent in a low-CTR niche and poor in a high-CTR one. Judge it against your own category, not an industry average.
Why do Google Ads benchmarks vary so much?
Because verticals differ in intent, competition, and audience. A blended average across unrelated categories hides that range, so it describes no real account. The useful signal is the distribution within a single category, not the number that averages them all together.
Figures come from a forensic analysis of 31 Google Ads accounts across ten consumer-utility verticals, representing $133M in managed spend, September 2024 to February 2025. CPC and CTR are medians per vertical, computed on deduplicated account windows. Related reading: how much budget is wasted and Target CPA bidding.