Google Search CPCs Rise 4% as Amazon's Shopping Exit Effect Fades

Google search advertising got more expensive in the third quarter of 2026, ending roughly a year of flat click prices. According to eMarketer's summary of Tinuiti's Q3 benchmark report, cost per click rose 4% year over year, while click growth for Google Search slowed by four points to 9%. Advertisers now pay more for each click and are getting fewer additional clicks, so budgets built on last year's pricing need a second look.

What did Tinuiti's Q3 2026 data show?

Tinuiti, described by DigitalApplied as one of the largest independent performance-marketing agencies in the US, publishes quarterly benchmarks drawn from client campaigns. Its Q3 2026 report says it draws on more than $4 billion in annual ad spend under management and includes over 40 charts covering social, streaming, search, display and commerce. MediaPost reported that the report was published on Thursday, 15 October.

The key search figures, as reported by eMarketer and MediaPost:

• CPC: Google CPC growth averaged 0% from Q3 2025 through Q2 2026, then reached 4% in Q3 2026. MediaPost puts the acceleration at 1% in Q2 to 4% in Q3.
• Search clicks: click growth for Google Search overall slowed four points year over year to 9%.
• Shopping clicks: growth for Google US Shopping ads slowed to 14%, from about 18% in Q2 2026.
• Spend: MediaPost says total ad-spend growth held stable in Q3 at just under 14%, and that year-over-year spending growth for Google advertisers was steady from Q2 to Q3.

Spend growth holding steady while click growth falls means each extra dollar buys less traffic. That is the arithmetic behind the report's central point.

Why did Google CPCs jump after a year of flat prices?

Tinuiti ties the shift to Amazon. MediaPost reports that Amazon pulled out of almost all US Google Shopping auctions in late July 2025, leaving a gap that held CPC growth down through early 2026. Amazon keeps a slight presence through its Pharmacy arm in health and beauty auctions but has otherwise stayed out for more than a year.

By Q3 2026, according to the same report, other large ecommerce platforms had increased or consolidated their presence in Google's auctions. MediaPost says this pushed standard advertisers to bid significantly higher to hold impression share. In other words, the vacuum Amazon left is being filled by other bidders.

The effect on click volume mirrors the price effect. eMarketer notes that click growth is slowing after the boost advertisers received when Amazon stopped competing. Tinuiti analysts believe Amazon's absence had lifted click growth for the advertisers that stayed, per MediaPost.

There is also a Google-side factor. MediaPost says Google's 17 August update to how budget-limited campaigns work with target-based bid strategies affected CPCs too. The coverage I reviewed does not quantify that contribution, so the split between the Amazon effect and the 17 August change is unknown.

How unusual is Amazon's absence?

Very. In its Q3 2025 report, Tinuiti noted that Amazon had come late to Google Shopping, staying out for nearly five years after Google moved to a paid model in 2012. Since then its pauses have been short: about three weeks in 2018, Prime Day in 2019, and about three months early in the pandemic. A break of more than a year has no precedent in that history.

That matters for forecasting. A full year of benchmarks was shaped by a competitor missing from the auction. Any plan that treated 2025-26 CPC trends as normal was built on an unusual base, which is what eMarketer's analyst note implies when it describes the favorable pricing environment as fading.

Is the pressure limited to Google search?

The Q3 report points to price increases across several channels, though the detail varies.

Tinuiti's own headline figure on its report page is 17: the number of quarters since average YouTube CPM last rose year over year. That squares with MediaPost's "first since 2022" framing.

The comparison with the prior quarter is useful. In Q2, MediaPost reported that Microsoft's search CPC growth had reached 19% year over year while Google's stayed weak. Google's Q3 rise narrows that gap from one side. The Q3 coverage I reviewed gives no Microsoft figure, so I cannot say how Microsoft's CPCs moved this quarter.

What should advertisers do now?

eMarketer's recommendations are practical. It advises reassessing search budgets against conversion performance, because rising CPCs may mean spending more just to keep traffic stable, and tracking cost per acquisition and conversion rate alongside CPC. It also tells marketers to plan for renewed CPC growth rather than assuming costs stay flat after Q3.

My reading of what that means in practice:

1. Rebase your forecasts. If your 2027 search model uses the 0% CPC trend of the past four quarters, update it. The 4% Q3 figure is one quarter, so treat it as a floor for scenario planning rather than a trend line.
2. Separate Shopping from text ads. The Amazon effect centers on Shopping auctions, where click growth fell to 14% from about 18% in Q2. Review those campaigns against their own margin targets.
3. Audit budget-limited campaigns. Because Google's 17 August change touched budget-limited campaigns using target-based bidding, check whether spend pacing or CPCs shifted in your accounts after that date.
4. Plan the holiday quarter on current prices. Tinuiti frames its report as a guide to what marketers should know heading into the last quarter of the year, so price your Q4 bids on Q3 data.

What are the limits of this data?

The figures come from Tinuiti's client base, not from Google. They reflect the mix of advertisers Tinuiti manages, and the coverage I read does not break that mix down. A B2B lead-generation account may see a different CPC trend, and your own account data should be the deciding input.

The two news summaries also frame the data slightly differently. eMarketer describes CPC growth averaging 0% across four quarters, while MediaPost cites a move from 1% in Q2. These are compatible, since one is an average and the other a single quarter. I also could not verify the underlying charts beyond the Tinuiti landing page and the two summaries, which means the full breakdown by category is not confirmed here.

What to watch next

Three questions will decide whether this is a one-quarter bump or a new pricing regime. First, whether Amazon returns to Google Shopping auctions at scale, which would reverse the dynamic again; none of the sources I read says it plans to. Second, whether the other ecommerce platforms that filled the gap keep spending through the holiday quarter. Third, whether YouTube's CPM increase persists after 17 quarters without one, since it would mean video is no longer the cheap alternative to search.

For most advertisers, the safest move is to stop treating cheap clicks as a given. Search pricing was held down for a year in part by one absent bidder, and the Q3 data suggests that cushion is gone.