---
title: "The 2026 Post-Click Report: ad costs and clicks | PostCliq"
description: "Google CPC is up 14.5% in two years and 68% of US searches end without a click. Get every chart, the conversion arithmetic and a 90-day plan, free."
url: "https://postcliq.com/resources/post-click-report-2026"
---

# The 2026 Post-Click Report. The numbers behind every visit.

Clicks cost more, fewer arrive free, and budgets are flat. The short version is below. The full report puts every chart, the arithmetic and a 90-day plan in one place for your next budget meeting.

[Get the report](https://postcliq.com/resources/post-click-report-2026#get-it)

## What is inside.

- The one-page director summary: the situation, what it means and what to do.
- Every chart and table in one place, each with its source and its limit.
- The cost per click and click trend data, 2024 to 2026.
- The conversion arithmetic, worked through on illustrative numbers.
- A 90-day action plan with an owner and a check for every step.
- Seven sourced talking points for your CEO or board.

## The short version

Key takeaways

- Google's cost per click rose 7% in 2024 and 7% in 2025, about 14.5% compounded over two years, and paid clicks grew 13% year on year in each of the first two quarters of 2026.
- Organic clicks are shrinking: 68% of US Google searches ended with no click in early 2026, and position one earns 58% fewer clicks where an AI Overview shows.
- Cost per lead in WordStream's 2026 benchmark fell for the first time in five years, not because clicks got cheaper but because conversion rates rose.
- With marketing budgets flat at 7.8% of company revenue, converting more of the traffic you already pay for is the cheapest growth left.

The squeeze in four numbers

**14.5%** rise in Google's cost per click across 2024 and 2025, compounded [Alphabet Form 10-K, FY2024 and FY2025](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204426000018/goog-20251231.htm)

**68%** of US Google searches ended with no click, January to April 2026 [SparkToro, June 2026](https://sparktoro.com/blog/in-2026-less-than-one-third-of-google-searches-still-send-a-click/)

**8.18%** average Google Ads conversion rate in 2026, up in 87% of industries [WordStream by LocaliQ, 2026](https://www.wordstream.com/blog/2026-google-ads-benchmarks)

**7.8%** of company revenue spent on marketing in 2026, against 7.7% in 2025 [Gartner 2026 CMO Spend Survey](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-05-11-gartner-2026-cmo-spend-survey-finds-cmos-allocate-15-point-3-percent-of-marketing-budgets-to-ai-but-only-30-percent-are-ready-to-scale-ai-capabilities)

The price of a visit is going up and the free supply of visits is going down, while the budget stays where it was. The one number a marketing team fully controls is the share of those visits that become an enquiry or a sale.

The full evidence, the arithmetic and the honest case against are in [the post-click squeeze article](https://postcliq.com/blog/post-click-squeeze) .

The report puts it all in one place for a budget meeting: a one-page director summary, every chart and table, a 90-day plan with owners and checks, and the lines to use when the CEO asks why.

Free, opens on this site

## Get the full report

The evidence reorganised for a budget meeting: a summary your director can read in two minutes, the charts and tables, the plan and the lines to use. It opens on the next screen, ready to print or save as a PDF.

- A one-page director summary and seven sourced board talking points
- Every chart and table, with the source and the limit beside each number
- A 90-day plan in twelve steps, each with an owner and a check

It opens on the next screen. Nothing to download, nothing to wait for.