Finance CPC Costs Continued to Rise in April

The cost of CPC ads in the finance sector continued to rise in April, according to data from search management platform provider Effiicient Frontier. The company said its clients in the category spent 11.3 percent more on paid search ads over the course of the month than they did in March, reaching an average of $1.61 per click.

As the markets continue to recover, finance-related advertisers have also increased their investment in search ads significantly on a year-over-year basis, therefore driving up the cost of clicks. The average CPC was 40.4 percent higher in the sector in April 2011 than it was during the same month in 2010.

Efficient Frontier did not release CPC data for the travel vertical in April, as it "saw a lot of variance" in the sector and did not feel its numbers were "reflective of the broader market."

U.S. Average Search CPC by Category, April and March 2011
Category	CPC April 2011 ($)	CPC March 2011 ($)	CPC April 2010 ($)	Month-over-Month Change (%)	Year-over-Year Change, April (%)
Automotive	0.54	0.53	0.52	1.9	3.8
Finance	2.26	2.03	1.61	11.3	40.4
Retail	0.45	0.43	0.43	4.7	34.7
Source: 2011