Google Ads Benchmarks in Brazil: Search CTR, CPC and CPM

The Google Ads benchmarks that circulate in Brazil are almost all American: measured in dollars and calculated on an auction that is not ours. This article brings a local cut: a sample of Brazilian accounts, in reais, with the calculation rules described step by step. It is the first edition of the Marktech benchmark.

One of the most cited reports in the industry, from LocaliQ/WordStream, analyzed 13,474 American campaigns in its 2026 edition, blending Google and Microsoft Ads into the same figure. It is a good portrait of the United States, and that is what Brazilian content usually translates, without converting or adding context. To evaluate an account that advertises in reais, against Brazilian competitors, that number helps little. Here are the numbers from a sample of our portfolio, with the calculation rules laid out in the methodology.

• Why imported benchmarks don't work
• How this benchmark was built
• The numbers: CTR, CPC and CPM
• How to compare your account
• Limitations of this benchmark

Why imported benchmarks don't work

For three reasons. The first is currency: the average American CPC (cost per click) for 2026, US$ 5.42 in the LocaliQ report, converted at the exchange rate, describes an auction that barely exists in Brazil. The second is competition: the price of a click comes out of an auction Google runs for every search, so it reflects the advertiser density of your market, not Pennsylvania's. The third is statistical: most reports publish a single average, and in a skewed distribution like CPC's, the average is pulled up by the few accounts with very high values. That is why this benchmark reports median and quartiles. The median is the middle value: half the accounts fall below it, half above. The quartiles complete the ruler: a quarter of the accounts fall below the P25, a quarter above the P75, and the middle half sits between the two.

How this benchmark was built

The full rules, in the order they are applied:

• Sample: 65 accounts from the Marktech portfolio in July 2026, all operating in reais. The filters below make it a fraction of the portfolio, not the whole;
• Scope: keyword-based search campaigns only, on the Google Search Network. Left out: search partners, Display and Performance Max;
• Volume cutoff: an account enters with at least 1,000 impressions in the month;
• Calculation: each account's metrics come from the month's totals (clicks divided by impressions, cost divided by clicks), never from an average of averages, which would make a 10-click campaign weigh the same as a 10,000-click one;
• Aggregation: median and quartiles (P25 and P75) across accounts, each account weighing the same, plus the volume-weighted aggregate, in which each account weighs according to its size: the median describes the typical account, the weighted figure describes where the money is;
• Confidentiality: no account is identified and we only publish cells with at least 5 accounts.

The numbers: CTR, CPC and CPM

To read the table: CTR is the click-through rate (out of every 100 impressions, how many turn into clicks), CPC is the cost per click and CPM is the cost per thousand impressions. Note the distance between the quartiles: the P75 CPC is 3.7 times the P25. A range that wide shows how much industry, funnel stage and account maturity weigh on the price of a click, and it explains why a benchmark works as a ruler for context, not as a target.

About CPM: almost no report publishes it for search, and there is a technical reason. On the Search Network you are charged per click, so CPM is a derived metric, equal to CPC times CTR times one thousand (with CTR as a fraction: 3% enters as 0.03). We publish it anyway because it answers a practical question: how much it costs to appear one thousand times on the results page.

How to compare your account

For the comparison to hold, use the same ruler: the same month, only keyword-based search campaigns on the Search Network, and metrics calculated from the period's totals, not from the average of the campaigns. Then read by position. A CPC above the P75 calls for an investigation of quality and of the auction, and not every increase is the market's fault: we have already shown why CPC rises without any new competitor. A CTR below the P25 usually points to ad relevance and to keyword matching.

Limitations of this benchmark

A sample drawn from a portfolio of managed accounts does not represent the Brazilian market as a whole: these are companies that decided to invest with professional management, which is already a filter. The scope and volume cutoffs also leave part of the portfolio out: the numbers describe the accounts in the sample. One month is just a snapshot: seasonality moves the numbers throughout the year. And this first edition does not break the numbers down by industry: with the rule of at least 5 accounts per cell, we would rather wait for the full classification of the portfolio than publish a fragile cell. That is the next step, along with the time series: the evolution of CPC net of inflation (separating the real increase from the general rise in prices) is already measured in how much CPC rose beyond the IPCA, Brazil's official inflation index.

The intention is to update this benchmark periodically, with the same rules, so that the editions remain comparable to each other. If your account lands far from the range, in either direction, the sections above show where to start investigating.