CPC doubled overnight on Google Ads, no changes made - anyone else?

My campaign was stable for months, paying $18-22 per lead. Then on Monday, the cost per click suddenly doubled - I did not change any bids, budget, or targeting. I checked and found 2 new competitors bidding on the same keywords now. Quality Score also dropped on a few keywords.

Has this happened to anyone else recently? Not sure if it is just more competition or something else going on.

you said it new competitors = google will squeeze more money out of everyone ^^ quality score can play a big role check the search terms that matches the keywords if they changed

sometimes costs jump even without you changing anything, usually from new competitors or quality/ads not matching as well anymore. check search terms and ad relevance/qs for the affected kws, it often points to the real cause.

Start with Auction Insights, Quality Score, and search term reports. Find the reason behind the CPC jump first, then make changes. Random bid changes can make it worse.

yeah this can happen the new competitors and lower quality score can increase cpc and also check auction insights and improve the ad quality.

There is a high chance that your competitors increased their bids. However, you can also add some low-quality search terms as negative keywords to help control wasted traffic.

New competitors can change the whole auction. I would check Auction Insights first, maybe they are pushing bids higher.

QS is relative. Expected CTR is benchmarked against the other ads in the auction, so 2 new competitors with better creative drags your score down without you touching anything. Your ads didn't get worse. The room got better.

tbh those new guys might just be running on high launch budgets to get some quick data. in my experience it usually settles down after a week or two once they realize they are overpaying, so maybe dont panic and change your bids just yet.

Yes the new competitors can definitely push cpc up because the drop in quality score may be adding to the increase too.

Too many people using threshold accounts, too much click fraud, too many bad paid ad actors.

Spend a lot and the clicks don't have that much purchase intent. I tested supplements and real estate and was mildly impressed then with low cost Microsoft Ads because it had the same GUI keyword system enabling you to do exactly match. If it wasn't for that I would have wasted lots on broad match. Even phrase match seems a leak since there's other ways for discovery.

I was PPC ad certified once atleast (*2021). It's a way to grab your money how they teach that too. Because you don't need phrase or brand matching if your a single operator.
There's also a filtering technique they used to teach in courses that still works I read. Adspend credit match or coupon voucher(s) usually exist for testing. Make your your site is optimized. I think it may be useful for when waiting on SEO to kick on.

New competitors entering the auction can easily push CPC up. Check Auction Insights and search terms first.

Had similar things happen before. New advertisers entering the same auctions can push CPC up, but I’d also check ad relevance and landing page quality before changing bids.