01
Shopping ads first
For products, Shopping and Performance Max with a clean product feed usually beat text ads on cost per sale.
In 2026 the median campaign paid US$4.44CA$6.23 per click and US$97.51CA$136.72 per lead — 46% above the all-industry median.
What a budget buys
Clicks use the median cost per click; leads use the median cost per lead. Each is a separate median, so the two won’t match exactly.
| Monthly budget | Clicks | Leads |
|---|---|---|
| US$1,000 | ≈ 225 | ≈ 10 |
| US$2,500 | ≈ 563 | ≈ 26 |
| US$5,000 | ≈ 1,126 | ≈ 51 |
| US$10,000 | ≈ 2,252 | ≈ 103 |
| Monthly budget | Clicks | Leads |
|---|---|---|
| CA$1,000 | ≈ 161 | ≈ 7 |
| CA$2,500 | ≈ 402 | ≈ 18 |
| CA$5,000 | ≈ 803 | ≈ 37 |
| CA$10,000 | ≈ 1,606 | ≈ 73 |
When it pays back
At the median cost per lead, one customer from this many leads covers the ad spend. Any better and the ads make money.
| A customer is worth | Break even at |
|---|---|
| US$500 | 1 in 5 leads |
| US$1,000 | 1 in 10 leads |
| US$2,500 | 1 in 25 leads |
| US$5,000 | 1 in 51 leads |
| US$10,000 | 1 in 102 leads |
| A customer is worth | Break even at |
|---|---|
| CA$500 | 1 in 3 leads |
| CA$1,000 | 1 in 7 leads |
| CA$2,500 | 1 in 18 leads |
| CA$5,000 | 1 in 36 leads |
| CA$10,000 | 1 in 73 leads |
Who this covers
Examples of businesses in this category — our grouping, not the report’s.
How we’d run it
01
For products, Shopping and Performance Max with a clean product feed usually beat text ads on cost per sale.
02
Feed real order values back to Google so it bids for buyers, not browsers — this category’s low conversion rate makes that essential.
03
Most visitors don’t buy on the first visit. A modest retargeting budget brings back people who already chose a product.
The 2026 median was US$4.44 per click in the US — about CA$6.23 at the October 22, 2026 exchange rate. That’s 18% below the all-industry median of US$5.42.
Converted from the US median, about CA$136.72 per lead (US$97.51 in the US). The report has no separate Canadian figures, so treat it as a guide — local competition and your landing page move it up or down.
At the median cost per lead, about 26 leads a month in the US, or 18 for CA$2,500 in Canada. A stronger landing page and faster follow-up can lift that well above the median.
Source
WordStream by LocaliQ — Google Ads Benchmarks 2026 — 13,474 US-based Google Ads and Microsoft Ads search campaigns, April 1, 2025 – March 31, 2026. Each “average” is a median, to limit the effect of outliers. All amounts in the report are in US dollars. Canadian figures convert the US medians at 1.4021 CAD per USD (Bank of Canada, October 22, 2026); the report has no separate Canadian data.
Tell us what a customer is worth. We’ll come back with a budget, a channel plan and the numbers we expect it to return.
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