The Ultimate Google Ads Guide
Chapter 7
Bidding Optimization: What Bidding Method is Best?
Google Ads provides multiple options when it comes to bidding on keywords.
Good bidding strategies can help you increase your ad rank and even decrease costs to capitalize on cheaper conversions and clicks.
But bidding can be complicated for a new Google Ads user.
What strategy is best? When should you increase your bids or decrease them?
Continue reading to find out!
The Different Bidding Options on Google Ads (and What To Choose Based on Your Campaign Goals)
Currently, on Google Ads, there are a few different bidding options based on different goals, like generating more clicks or impressions or conversions.
Depending on your goal, you can bid in a few different ways.
Some of the most common bidding options focus on cost per click, and ultimately, getting more clicks on your ads.
These two methods are known as:
- Automated bidding
- Manual bidding
Automated Bidding
With automated bidding, you do the least amount of work possible. Hooray!
Setting a maximum daily budget, Google takes care of the rest by letting Google Ads automatically tweak your CPC bids based on market fluctuations.
If advertisers drop out and costs decrease, your bid will adjust accordingly to generate more clicks.
If you have a large account on Google Ads, this is a great time-saving tool.
Manual Bidding
With manual bidding, you are put in the driver’s seat of your own bidding strategy.
You can adjust bids at the ad group or even keyword level, allowing you to focus bids on your biggest winners and reduce spend on poor performers.
This can be great for increasing bids on specific keywords and match types and decreasing bids for broad keywords that tend to bring in less converting visitors.
Manual bidding prepares you well for more advanced bidding techniques but is also harder to manage as your account and campaigns increase in size.
Ultimately, the choice is yours, and both can be great for beginners.
Advanced Bidding Strategies
Other advanced techniques for bidding include:- vCPM: rather than paying for clicks (like manual and automated bidding), you focus on impressions.
The acronym vCPM = viewable cost per thousand impressions. Meaning you pay for each set of 1,000 impressions. This option is best used for brand awareness goals. - CPA: otherwise known as cost per acquisition or conversion represents how much you pay to acquire one customer.
Here you let Google know your maximum CPA.
This is a fantastic tool for cautious, new advertisers who don’t want to spend more than they have to.
When setting bids for your campaign, refer back to the average CPC of your keywords.
Keep a close eye on your bids and the position you occupy.
For instance, if you are currently ranking second and paying the average CPC, increase your bids by 10% and see what happens.
Bidding is a game of guess and check.
Use small bids increases and decreases to gauge their impact on your rank and impressions.
Make slow, small adjustments to your bids to avoid huge backslides in performance or paying way too much for clicks.
And now it’s time to focus on your customers.