Choosing The Right Bid Strategy Is Vital
Bid strategies can be daunting. Google really likes to push its own automated strategies, which can work great.
Knowing what ingredients set you up correctly for each bidding strategy is a key to success in your account.
So, stay with me here and I hope to answer the question: “which factors should an advertiser consider when deciding on a bidding strategy?”
Automated Bid Strategies vs Manual Bidding In Google Ads
The key difference between automated bidding and manual bidding is whether or not you select the individual bids for each keyword.
Google’s argument for automated bidding is that there are so many factors that play into each search that not even the most meticulous account manager can adjust in real-time all the factors that play into each search (which is frequently valid) .
Consider that each searcher types in a keyword in a unique way, falls in their own combination of audiences, has unique search behavior at the device level, location, time of day and so on.
With manual bidding, you set these figures as ‘static’ values, called “bid adjustment.” In automated bidding, those values are set dynamically per auction, which sounds pretty good on paper.
Google Ads Manual Bidding
Google ads manual bidding is a keyword-level bidding strategy. The appeal to this strategy is control.
Being able to control each keyword’s max CPC allows you to control costs and make decisions based on micro-performance factors.
In B2B, you generally see less search volume for your services/products. This means each click is more valuable to the business owner. A complaint about automation is that it can sometimes spend a lot before it figures out your market and how to convert in it.
The Max CPC bidding strategy gives you the control to make sure that you don’t waste too much money during your initial optimizations.
When To Use Manual Bidding
In most cases, I start with manual bidding, it allows me to have ultimate control during the growth process.
You’ll want to do the same if:
- You don’t see a lot of traffic for your low funnel terms
- You have a small budget (or are getting less than 20 account conversions per month).
- The product or service you offer is not a mainstream product (mainstream products might be like Calendly or Notion where there’s plenty of volume and competition for those services).
Enhanced CPC Bidding
“Manual bid with enhanced cpc” or “enhanced cpc bid strategy” are the same thing.
They keep the same keyword level bids as you have in Manual Bidding, however, they are minorly automated in the fact that they can up to double your bid at times that the automation thinks it can grab a conversion.
Automated Bidding Bid Strategies In Google Ads
Automation has come a long way in the past few years. Knowing the key differences between the automated bidding strategies is where you’ll start being able to leverage Google’s vast data pool to reap some profits from a giant search ecosystem.
Conversion-Based Bid Strategies
The best kind of bid strategies are the ones that are geared towards conversion volume or value.
Remember, you can set what conversions matter to you in the conversion settings. With automation, it matters whether you set conversions as primary or secondary so keep that in mind.
I hesitate to even show the other kinds because they are so worthless unless you just have money to waste.
As a general rule for all conversion-based bid strategies in Google Ads that I follow is this:
Automation always works best with lots of data, so if you are starting a conversion-based strategy from scratch, you better be in one of those well-searched industries (like appointment scheduling, CRMs, analytics platforms, yata yata) or you’ll waste a lot of money to start.
The other way to start an automated strategy with good data is to use Max CPC until you are getting 20-40 conv. a month. This gives Google the data needed to execute an efficient conversion strategy.
Come 2023, conversion-based strategies are going to be re-classified, so below I’ll list them according to what they are now and what they will become.
Max Conversions
Max conversions tries to get you as many conversions as you can get within your budget in Google Ads.
This conversion strategy is good for advertisers with lower budgets who want to get into automation.
Target CPA
In 2023 this will actually be a sub setting under Max Conversions where you select to activate Target CPA.
In Target CPA you can set a desired cost per acquisition at the campaign, ad group, audience and others.
It is advised that you don’t use this strategy if you see the “limited by budget” status on the campaign in question. That’s because Google secretly wants your daily budget to be much higher than whatever you want your target CPA is.
You also have to be realistic about what you set here.
I’d advise setting it to a CPA that would put you at like a .75 ROI to start and work your way up (or if you are working with an existing campaign, set it at your current CPA to start).
Max Conversion Value
Like the Max Conversions Google Ads bidding strategy, Max Conversion value is good for accounts that have limited budgets.
One thing to be sure of is that you have accurate conversion values in your primary conversions so that Google is optimizing off of accurate data.
This strategy will favor high-value conversions within your budget.
Target ROI
In 2023, this bid strategy will be nested under Max Conversion Value as an optional addition.
With Target ROI you can start to get very aggressive if you have a high enough daily budget and plenty of historic conversion data.
Target ROI is to Max Conversion Value as Target CPA is to Max Conversions.
If your daily budget is higher than your CPA then you can start thinking about using Target ROI.
Same thing as Target CPA here though, start conservatively and work your way up.
Optimizing Conversion-Based Strategies
To keep these strategies progressing, it is important to keep your eye on the individual keywords.
Even though you’re not using a keyword-level bidding strategy, you want to eliminate high-cost, poor-performance keywords.
Likewise, if one keyword or ad group is spending most of the budget in a certain campaign, think about splitting it off and limiting the daily budget. Same goes for high performers.
What about the other automated strategies?
You mean like max clicks and target impression share? No. Don’t use them. Not unless you have a massive budget and are looking for places to spend it.
Max clicks will try to get the most clicks out of your budget and will often end up getting you crap traffic.
Target impression share is just targeting a vanity metric and isn’t based on any real results. So maybe it would be good for a campaign that’s 100% focused on awareness but not much else.
Conclusion: Bidding Strategies In Google Ads
If you are lost, start with Enhanced Max CPC, pick a CPC that you could afford if you were to assume a 1% conversion rate and work up from there. Or select max conversions if you are in one of those high search volume industries.
If you want help choosing your first keywords, look no further.
As always, thank you for reading. Please write if you have any questions.