So, you may know a thing or two about PPC but are lost in the conundrum that is PPC bidding. 🤯 It is an art form, to say the least, and there is a lot to take into consideration when trying to create your next PPC bidding strategy.
You may just be setting a maximum bid and hoping for the best, or perhaps you take a look at the copious amounts of ppc automated bidding options in Google Ads and feel completely overwhelmed. The truth is that your bidding strategy is just as crucial as your keywords and ad copy when it comes to PPC success because it directly impacts where your ads show and the pay-per-click amount.
You need to learn how to spend your ppc budget efficiently so that you can achieve your specific business goals, which is where this guide comes in. Here, we’ll take a look at your options for PPC bidding strategies to help you determine the best one for your targets.
But first, let’s discuss why your PPC bidding strategy will either make or break your campaign. Well, for starters, it will dictate how Google enters the auction on your behalf. So, if your strategy is not well optimised, you’ll end up wasting money and missing out on valuable opportunities.
Having the right PPC bidding strategy will:
Firstly, you’ll need to define your campaign goals because this will orchestrate the backbone of your PPC bidding strategy. So, for example, do you want to achieve brand awareness, website traffic or clicks, conversions, or generate a specific amount of revenue for each pound spent advertising? Once you understand what your main goal is, you can begin crafting the perfect PPC bidding strategy. 🌟
You can either choose a manual PPC bidding strategy or an automated PPC bidding strategy.
A manual CPC bidding strategy will put you in the driving seat, whereby you’ll choose and set a maximum bid for each keyword or ad group and as a result, Google will try to get you a click for the same amount or less. The key thing here is that Google will never exceed the amount you’ve set.
The pros here are that you have maximum control over your bids and the budget you use, which is ideal for small campaigns, highly specific keywords or for testing where you want to control your spending.
This can, however, become very time-consuming, and you can easily miss opportunities because you can’t manually adjust bids 24/7 based on real-time signals. However, it is the best strategy to use for any branded campaign, as you’ll be able to retain control over your branded keywords and competitors bidding on your brand keywords.
Another manual PPC bidding strategy is an enhanced CPC bidding strategy, which acts as a bridge between manual and automated bidding. You’ll start by setting your base manual bids, however, Google’s ECPC feature will subtly adjust your bids up or down (up to 30%) in real-time. Google will use contextual signals to adjust your strategy and increase your chances of getting a conversion.
With this type of PPC bidding strategy, you are able to retain a good level of control while leveraging some of Google’s machine learning to optimise for conversions. But you’ll still need to keep a good eye on Google to ensure your campaign is heading in the right direction. 👀
On the other end of the spectrum, you get to put your feet up and let the robots work their magic! 🤖Google’s automated PPC bidding strategies leverage machine learning to optimise your bids in real-time for specific goals. They do this by analysing huge amounts of data to predict the likelihood of a conversion. They will then adjust your bids accordingly.
However, a vital part of this recipe is that you have conversion tracking set up because, without data on what constitutes a conversion (a sale or a signup, for example), Google won’t know what it needs to optimise for. 📈
Let’s take a look at the key automated bidding strategies:
Remember when we set our goals? This automated PPC bidding strategy works well with trying to maximise your clicks by getting as many as possible for your daily budget. Google will then try to get the most traffic for your campaign.
This type of automated campaign focuses purely on driving traffic, increasing brand awareness or building up remarketing lists. It can also be used in the early stages of a new campaign to gather data.
Again, with this type of automated PPC strategy, your goal would be to gain as many conversions as possible within your daily budget. Google will automatically set bids to help your campaign with this. This strategy is best for lead generation and sales-focused campaigns where you want to maximise the volume of conversions without necessarily targeting a specific cost-per-conversion.
Here, the goal is to achieve a specific average cost-per-acquisition (CPA), which is the average cost you end up paying for each conversion. You’ll inform Google of your average CPA, and it will then automatically set bids to hit that target while maximising conversions, too.
This strategy is best for businesses that have a clear understanding of how much they can afford to pay for a lead or a sale. The only requirement would be that you have sufficient historical conversion data for Google’s algorithm to learn from. Generally, this would be at least 30 conversions within the last 30 days for search campaigns.
When you set a target ROAS PPC bidding strategy, you’ll likely want to achieve a specific average return on ad spend (ROAS). So, you’ll set a target ROAS percentage which Google will use to optimise bids to hit that target while still maximising your conversion value.
This strategy is best for e-commerce businesses where different conversion values are tracked. As with a target CPA strategy, you’ll also need sufficient historical conversion value data.
Here, Google will optimise your bids to drive the highest conversion value, even if this means fewer conversions overall. This strategy is best for e-commerce businesses with varying product prices and lead generation, where different leads have different values. The focus here will be on maximising the total value without a specific ROAS target.
With target impression share, you want your ads to show in a specific location a certain percentage of the time. So, you’ll set a target percentage for how often you want your ad to appear in a desired location, and Google will adjust the bids to achieve that.
This type of automated PPC bidding strategy is best for competitive awareness or ensuring your ads are always visible.
It’s important to note that the best bidding strategy isn’t a fixed one, but rather one that evolves and changes to suit your goals and campaign performance. We mentioned before that the first step is to define your goal, as well as consider your data volume, because this will determine the type of PPC bidding strategy you use.
For example, with new campaigns or those with low conversions, you’ll want to start with Manual CPC or Maximise Clicks to gather the initial data and clicks first. When you have sufficient conversion data, however, you’ll be able to switch to Maximum Conversions. When you feel you need more specific performance targets, you can start considering Target CPA or Target ROAS bidding strategies.
Also, you need to take into consideration your budget and how much money you’re willing to invest in your PPC bidding strategies. While smart bidding aims for efficiency, strategies like tCPA/tROAS require a sufficient budget to explore bidding opportunities and hit their targets. So, if your budget is extremely limited, manual or Maximise Clicks might give you more control initially.
The PPC team at Assisted have this knuckled down, so why don’t you leave it to the experts to help you craft the best PPC bidding strategy? We’d be more than willing to nerd out on your next PPC campaign, so get in touch today on 01788 288020! 🤓