Channel cost reference · 2025 data

Google Ads cost for B2B: CPL, CPC, CPM and why it is the most expensive channel

Every number below comes from B2B advertisers running Google Ads in 2025, inside a dataset of $57.6M of measured spend across 153 advertisers, with closed-won revenue traced back to the ads. No email gate. The method is published and the dataset is available.

How much do Google Ads cost for B2B?

A B2B lead from Google Ads costs $524 on a spend-weighted basis, at $9.76 per click and $617.91 per thousand impressions. Click-through rate is 6.33%, far above social, but only 1.9% of those clicks convert.

Why is Google Ads more expensive per B2B lead than LinkedIn?

Not because clicks cost more. Google clicks are $9.76 against $9.39 on LinkedIn, effectively the same. The gap is conversion: 1.9% of Google clicks become leads against 5.9% on LinkedIn. Three times fewer, at the same price.

The high click-through rate is the trap. Search intent produces 6.33% CTR, roughly ten times LinkedIn, which makes Google look efficient in the ad platform. The lead only appears after the click, and that is where the channel loses.

What is a good Google Ads cost per lead for B2B?

The median B2B advertiser pays $920 per lead, not the weighted $524. If you are under $524 you are doing better than most of this dataset. A weighted average is pulled down by a few very large, very efficient spenders and is not what a typical advertiser experiences.

Is Google Ads worth it for B2B?

Worth it where intent is explicit and the buyer is already searching for the category. Poor value as a discovery channel: you pay search prices for audiences that are not searching. The honest comparison is cost per customer, not cost per lead, and that needs closed-won data most platforms cannot show you.

Across the full dataset, 65 of 105 advertisers running lead-generation spend had no closed-won revenue traceable to their ads at all, 62% of them. Before optimizing cost per lead on any channel, check whether you can see the other end of it.

Where does Google Ads sit against the other channels?

Most expensive per lead of every channel in this dataset. The full cross-channel table, with CTR, CPC and CPM for LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Google, is on the B2B advertising benchmarks page. The LinkedIn cut has the deepest breakdown, including the full cost-per-lead distribution.

How were these numbers calculated?

Spend-weighted aggregates across B2B advertisers who ran Google Ads in 2025. Suppression thresholds mean no cut is published on a sample too small to be worth anything; cuts that failed were killed, not caveated. The full method names the rules and the dataset is CC BY 4.0.