Your Google Ad spend might be about to go up

As of 1 October 2021, Google will “include a surcharge on your invoices or statements for ads that are purchased through Google Ads and for YouTube placements purchased on reservations basis”.

If you’re serving ads in these markets, your charges will increase as follows

  • Ads served in Austria: A 5% Austria DST fee added to your invoice or statement
  • Ads served in France: A 2% Regulatory Operating Cost added to your invoice or statement
  • Ads served in India: A 2% Regulatory Operating Cost added to your invoice or statement
  • Ads served in Italy: A 2% Regulatory Operating Cost added to your invoice or statement
  • Ads served in Spain: A 2% Regulatory Operating Cost added to your invoice or statement
  • Ads served in Turkey: A 5% Regulatory Operating Cost added to your invoice or statement
  • Ads served in the United Kingdom: A 2% UK DST fee added to your invoice or statement

As justification for these additional charges, the Google Payments Team stated:

These surcharges are being added to cover a portion of the costs associated with complying with digital services tax legislation in these jurisdictions. Learn more about jurisdiction-specific surcharges.

What does this mean for your ad budget?

Obviously, it will go up. And if you’re a big spender, fairly significantly. What this means is that for a short timeframe you may perceive that your “normal” cost per lead from Google Ads is “going up”. In other words, if you’re using Google and Youtube ads to advertise in your markets, you will need to pay a little more for the same amount of leads (ergo, patients).

How can you avoid these extra costs?

The fact is, you can’t fight Google. However, you should ask your paid traffic partner or agency how much they’ve reduced your CPC year over year and ask them how they aim to reduce your cost per click over time.

For example, as Google Ad Partners, we manage about £50,000 a month with Google Ads on behalf of our clients. And, we’ve been able to reduce CPCs for clients in many markets over the past year alone. A few examples include:

  • A 22.6% decrease in CPC year over year for a laser eye surgery client in Australia
  • A 28.9% decrease in CPC year over year for a laser eye surgery client in the US
  • A 10.71% decrease in CPC year over year for a cataract surgery client in the UK
  • A 7.5% decrease in CPC year over year for a cataract surgery client in the UK
  • A 13.26 decrease in CPC year over year for a cataract surgery client in the UK
  • A 22.7% decrease in CPC year over year for a cataract surgery client in the UK

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