What Google and Meta ads really cost in Cameroon

Cost per click is the wrong number to worry about

Almost every conversation about advertising starts with what a click costs. It’s the least useful number there is. A cheap click that never becomes a customer is more expensive than a costly one that does.

The number that decides whether advertising works for you is what you pay for one actual customer. If a client is worth 200,000 FCFA to you and you can win one for 25,000, it doesn’t matter at all that your clicks cost more than your competitor’s.

What you should expect to pay

In Cameroon, competition on most search terms is still low compared with Europe or North America, and click costs show it. Meta placements are usually cheaper per click than Google search, sometimes by a lot.

But the two aren’t doing the same job. Someone searching Google for your service has already decided they want it and is picking a supplier. Someone scrolling Facebook has not. Search ads cost more per click and turn into customers far more often. Social ads are cheap per click and you need more of them.

Rather than quote figures that will be out of date in months, we would rather give you the method. Run a small budget for two weeks, measure what a lead costs you, and decide on your own numbers instead of somebody’s blog post.

The five settings that waste most small budgets

• Broad match with no negative keywords. The most expensive default in Google Ads. Without negatives you’ll pay for “free”, “jobs”, “salary” and every student researching your industry.
• Search partners and the Display Network left on. They’re on by default, and they spend a surprising share of a small budget in places that rarely produce customers.
• Location targeting set to “interest” instead of “presence”. The default shows your ads to people merely interested in your city, not people in it.
• Sending every ad to the homepage. If the ad promises one service, the page must be about that service. Every extra click between the promise and the answer loses you a share of the traffic you paid for.
• No conversion tracking. Without it, the platform is chasing clicks, and it will happily deliver them forever.

Google or Meta first?

If people already search for what you sell, start with Google. The demand exists, and you’re simply making sure you’re there at the moment someone is choosing.

If people don’t know your product exists, or the thing is visual, start with Meta. You’re creating demand rather than catching it. That’s slower and it needs better images, but it’s the only option when nobody is searching.

A hotel, a lawyer and a plumber should start on Google. A skincare brand, a restaurant and a clothing label should usually start on Meta.

How much budget is enough to learn anything

The most common mistake is a budget too small to produce data. Spend enough for four clicks a day and after a month you’ve about a hundred and twenty clicks and maybe two enquiries. That tells you nothing, and you’ll decide advertising doesn’t work.

Set a budget that produces at least thirty to fifty clicks a week on one tightly focused campaign, and run it for a month before you judge it. Testing one service properly beats testing five badly.

Track conversions, or do not run ads at all

This isn’t optional. An ad account with no conversion tracking is a machine for turning money into clicks, and it will do that job perfectly.

Set up conversion tracking before the first ad goes live: form submissions, WhatsApp clicks, calls and purchases. Then the platform can chase the thing you actually want, and you can see which keyword or audience brought in real business.

The full cost of a month of advertising

The click price is one line in a longer list. This is what a month of advertising actually costs, using our published management fees as the example.

The ad budget never passes through us: you pay the platform directly, so you can always see exactly what was spent.

What to do first

Work out what a customer is worth. Pick one service. Build a landing page about that one service. Turn on conversion tracking. Run it for a month with a budget big enough to produce data. Then judge it.

If you want that set up properly, our paid advertising service does exactly this, and we’ll tell you before we start whether we think your numbers can work.

Go further: the advertising guide, our ads service, ads management prices, or why ads get clicks but no customers.

Questions people ask