Google Ads CPC and CPA Benchmarks 2026 — by Industry (Poland + USA)
Jakub Pytlik
|
May 7, 2026
|
9 min read
Poland — typical CPC ranges in 2026
These ranges come from Polish industry publications combined with my own campaigns. Expect your real CPC to land somewhere in the middle, but the top of the auction can sit considerably higher.
| Industry | Search-network CPC | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce (Shopping) | 0.50–2 PLN | Cheapest clicks in Google Ads |
| E-commerce (Search) | 1.50–4 PLN | Apparel lower, electronics higher |
| Local services | 1.50–5 PLN | Plumbers, hairdressers, mechanics, photographers |
| Restaurants / catering | 2–6 PLN | Diet catering usually higher |
| Travel | 2–6 PLN | Heavy seasonality |
| Health and fitness | 4–10 PLN | Dental, clinics, supplements |
| Education / courses | 5–12 PLN | MBA, programming, certifications |
| Real estate | 3–15 PLN | Top cities up to 50 PLN |
| B2B / SaaS | 10–20 PLN | Few clicks, high customer value |
| Finance / loans | 15–25 PLN | Online loans, mortgage |
| Insurance | 18–30 PLN | Car insurance, life insurance |
| Law / claims | 15–25 PLN | Highest at law firms with big budgets |
Source: compilation from Double Digital, Infron, MarketingOnline (2025–2026, in Polish) + observations from accounts I run at JP Ads. There are no comprehensive Polish CPL/CPA benchmarks by industry — directional CPL figures are in the USA table below, and concrete CPA from Polish accounts is in the "what I see after 11 years" section.
USA — full benchmarks for comparison
Data from an analysis of 16,446 Google Ads campaigns in the USA (WordStream, April 2024 – March 2025). Poland usually sits 30–50% lower, but that is not a rule — in some niches (e.g. apparel e-commerce) the gap shrinks.
| Industry | CTR | CPC (USD) | Conv. rate | CPL (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurants | 7.58% | 2.05 | 7.09% | 30.27 |
| Travel | 8.73% | 2.12 | 5.75% | 73.70 |
| Auto — sales | 8.29% | 2.41 | 7.76% | 38.86 |
| Real estate | 8.43% | 2.53 | 3.28% | 100.48 |
| Sports | 9.19% | 2.64 | 7.62% | 47.47 |
| Finance and insurance | 8.33% | 3.46 | 2.55% | 83.93 |
| Shopping (e-commerce) | 8.92% | 3.49 | 3.83% | 47.94 |
| Furniture | 6.11% | 3.86 | 2.73% | 121.51 |
| Auto — repair | 5.56% | 3.90 | 14.67% | 28.50 |
| Apparel / fashion | 6.77% | 4.31 | 3.99% | 101.49 |
| Physicians / surgery | 6.73% | 5.00 | 11.62% | 56.83 |
| Health & fitness | 7.18% | 5.00 | 6.80% | 62.80 |
| Business services (B2B) | 5.65% | 5.58 | 5.14% | 103.54 |
| Beauty / cosmetics | 5.71% | 5.70 | 7.82% | 60.34 |
| Industrial (B2B) | 6.23% | 5.70 | 7.17% | 85.63 |
| Education | 5.74% | 6.23 | 11.38% | 90.02 |
| Dental | 5.44% | 7.85 | 9.08% | 83.93 |
| Law / law firms | 5.97% | 8.58 | 5.09% | 131.63 |
Source: WordStream Google Ads Benchmarks 2025 (analysis of 16,446 USA campaigns, April 2024 – March 2025).
Why rates in Poland are lower than the USA
Three main reasons:
- Less auction competition. Fewer companies advertise in Poland (smaller, less mature market) — which means less fighting over the same keywords.
- Lower customer LTV. A Polish finance customer is worth several times less than an American one — agencies pay less to acquire them.
- Smaller advertising budgets. In the USA, ad budgets are larger and deployed more aggressively. That pushes the auctions up.
One caveat: the gap is shrinking. From what I have seen over the last two years, Polish CPC in some niches (B2B SaaS, mortgages, insurance) has grown 20–30% — the market is maturing and ad budgets are growing.
What I see after 11 years — observations by industry
Anonymously, ranges from real accounts I have run or am still running. These are not "market averages" — they are specific data points:
- Cosmetics e-commerce — Shopping CPC 0.40–1.20 PLN, Search 1.80–3.50 PLN, target ROAS 4–6
- Diet catering — Search CPC 2.50–5.00 PLN, CPA 30–80 PLN per lead, seasonal spikes +40% (January, September)
- B2B research services — high-volume recruitment segment — CPC 1.00–1.50 PLN on "job [position]" phrases, CPA on registration 5–15 PLN. Note: this is a free candidate registration, not acquiring a paying customer — do not compare 1:1 with a sales lead
- B2B research services — corporate segment — CPC 3.30 PLN, but the customer is worth 50–100 thousand PLN per year, so the math works differently
- Local healthcare (specialist clinic) — Search CPC 4.80–5.50 PLN, CTR 8% (very strong), brand campaign CPC 0.70–1.30 PLN
- Finance — mortgage products for seniors — Search CPC 8–18 PLN, CPL 200–500 PLN, but the customer is worth tens of thousands
- B2B SaaS — enterprise segment — CPC 12–30 PLN on niche queries, CPL 200–600 PLN, decision cycle 3–6 months
If your numbers are off these ranges by more than 50%, something is worth looking at.
What drives your CPC the most
The tables above give you orientation. Your real CPC depends on:
- Quality Score — Google rewards ad-to-page relevance. QS 7–10 cuts CPC by 30–50%, QS 1–3 increases it by 100–300%. This is the biggest lever.
- Location — a Warsaw campaign will be 30–80% more expensive than the same campaign in Lublin or Zielona Góra.
- Time of day and day of week — in B2B, weekends are cheapest (less auction competition); 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. on weekdays is the most expensive.
- Seasonality — Black Friday, holidays, summer, back-to-school. In e-commerce, CPC can swing +60% in November.
- Campaign type — Shopping is usually 50–70% cheaper than Search, PMax falls somewhere in between, Display is 70–80% cheaper (but the traffic is different).
- Keyword match type — it is not a rule that "exact is more expensive than broad". Exact match on highly commercial queries (e.g. "mortgage calculator") can be more expensive because the auction is dense. Broad match, in turn, often produces high CPC under Smart Bidding because the system bids more widely. Practical take: exact gives better-qualified traffic, broad gives more reach — unit cost depends on competition in the niche.
How to compare your numbers with the benchmarks
Three steps, 15 minutes of work:
- Open Google Ads → Campaigns → last 30 days.
- Check the "Avg. CPC" and "Conv. rate" columns. Compare against the table above for your industry.
- If your CPC is 50% higher than the range — check Quality Score (you have to add the column). If QS ≤ 4 on your main keywords, that is the problem.
If the range checks out but conversion rate is low, the issue is not the campaign — it is the landing page (LP, form, offer).
Since September 2026, Google has also been gradually adding a comparison report to the account overview: your weekly spend and clicks next to those of businesses it considers similar to yours. It is useful market context, but not a reason to raise your budget, because the report does not know your margin. I explain what it tells you and what it does not in my article on Google Ads spend benchmarks.
About the sources: The USA table comes from WordStream Google Ads Benchmarks 2025 (analysis of 16,446 USA campaigns, April 2024 – March 2025). Polish ranges from Double Digital, Infron, MarketingOnline (in Polish) plus 11 years of running Google Ads campaigns at JP Ads. Numbers from my own practice are flagged "from my experience" — distinguish them from hard research.