Cost of clicks rises 15% year-over-year and ROAS drops 46%

Channable, the multichannel eCommerce and feed management platform trusted by more than 17,000 brands and agencies worldwide, has published its independent analysis of European eCommerce advertising costs, covering €1. 38 billion in verified spend across 10,000+ advertisers.

The analysis coincides with the launch of Channable’s eCommerce Google Ads Benchmark, which enables brands to compare their Google Ads performance against the wider e-commerce market. Key findings include: +15% YoY cost-per-click (CPC) increase across Google Ads eCommerce +47.

9% Higher ad spend in Q4 vs Q1 2025 –46% average ROAS contraction on Performance Max; -43% on Standard Shopping +€1. 44 rise in average cost-per-acquisition (CPA) on Performance Max; +€1. 94 on Shopping campaigns Cost-per-click across Google’s Shopping and Performance Max is up 15% year-on-year between June 2025 and June 2026, equalling a €0.

06 increase across all campaign types while the average ROAS contracted 46% on Performance Max and 43% on Standard Shopping over the same period as a result of rising click costs and falling conversion rates on Performance Max (-0. 11%) paired with rising customer acquisition costs. Brands are paying more and getting significantly less back.

The increase reflects three structural forces: The rapid entry of new advertisers into markets that previously had low floor prices – newer ecommerce markets like Hungary (42. 1%) and the Czech Republic (34. 8%) – are seeing increases more than double the European average.

The continued expansion of Google’s Performance Max as a campaign type, which consolidates auction competition.

The growing gap between advertisers with clean, optimised product data and those without, particularly during Q4 where Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas occur in a single twelve-week window The brands absorbing this pressure least well share a common characteristic. They are optimising their campaigns without optimising the data that feeds them.

When product listings contain incomplete attributes, incorrect categorisation, or missing signals, Google’s algorithm has less to work with. Quality Scores fall, auction competitiveness drops, and advertisers end up bidding more for visibility their data should already be earning them.

Poor data forces brands to pay more for clicks they should be winning cheaply. The brands feeling this most acutely treated Google Ads as a budget line when they should have approached it as key data infrastructure” A 15% CPC increase is painful if you’re bidding on the same listings as last year.

It’s manageable if your feed is optimised, your budget is structured for Q4, and your product data is working as hard as your campaigns. – Stefan Hospes, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Channable CPC across combined Google Ads channels was 9. 1% higher in Q4 versus Q1 of 2025. Total advertising spend ran 47. 9% higher in Q4 than Q1.

For brands finalising H2 budgets now, the implication is direct – a budget sized for Q1 competition will not survive Q4 intact. Q4 is the moment that separates brands that planned for it from brands that didn’t. This data tells you exactly what’s coming.

The only question is whether your budget, your feed quality, and your campaign structure are ready for it. – Stefan Hospes, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Channable