Use case: Diagnose rising paid costs

A PPC manager sees cost per click or cost per acquisition climbing while the campaigns themselves have not changed. Semrush data reconstructs the auction around those keywords month by month: how the implied cost per click moved, which terms absorbed the rise, who joined the bidding and who left. The first thing it can establish is whether the market moved at all — and when it did not, the diagnosis points back at the account rather than the competition.

Best for: Agency PractitionerBest for: Growth ManagerBest for: PPC ManagerGoal: OptimizationGoal: Performance AnalysisData type: CompetitorsData type: KeywordsData type: Paid Search

Outputs you'll get

The month your cost curve bent, derived from twelve months of your own paid totals.
A verdict on whether the increase is market-driven or account-driven, when you supply your actual CPC change.
The keywords carrying the increase, ranked by how much their CPC moved.
Named domains that entered the auction on your most pressured keywords, and those that left.
An attribution of the cost rise across new entrants, incumbent escalation, your own expansion and demand shift.
Your current portfolio ranked by share of paid cost, joined to cost pressure per keyword.
The paid keywords you have already lost, split into priced-out and deprioritized.
Position drift on the terms where your budget is concentrated.
A defend, concede, rebid or recover decision per keyword, with the monthly cost released by conceding.