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Google Ads has a range of automated bid strategies to help you get the most website visitors possible. You can set a target cost per view, and Google will make sure your bids are correct in order to reach that goal. Additionally, you can use machine learning to figure out what advertising goals are important to you and let Google handle the bidding for those targets. The display network is also a great place to generate traffic; with auction time bidding, you can make sure your ads are shown at the right time for maximum exposure.
Factors to consider when choosing a bidding strategy include the type of product or service you are advertising, your target audience, and the amount of money you're willing to spend on advertising.
Generally, there are four types of bidding strategies: manual bidding, automatic targeting, enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC), and automated bid management.
Let's have a look at them.
Manual bidding means that each time your ad is shown, the amount you are willing to pay for a click is set by hand. Manual bidding can be an effective strategy when you know how much you are willing to pay for certain keywords and when these keywords convert well in terms of website visits. This type of bidding can also lead to higher costs if you're not careful, as the amount you pay for each click is not automatically adjusted to maximize your return on investment.
Automatic targeting means that your advertising budget is automatically allocated across different keywords, and you pay a fixed amount for each click without taking into account the price of each keyword. This strategy can be useful if you know the average CPC for each keyword or ad group; however, automatic targeting will not result in increased traffic if some keywords are more expensive than others.
Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC) is an automated strategy that lets AdWords automatically lower your bids when it predicts that the expected cost-per-click will be higher than the amount you are willing to pay, and raise your bids when it predicts that the expected cost-per-click will be lower than your maximum bid.
Some think of ECPC as a less aggressive automated bidding strategy compared to automatic bidding since AdWords tends to adjust your bids up or down continuously instead of adjusting them in discrete increments like it does when you use automatic bidding.
A fourth strategy, automated bid management, is an extremely effective and sophisticated type of bidding that lets Adwords automatically adjust how much you are willing to pay per click based on time of day, location, the nature of your business (for instance, whether your product or service is B2B oriented), and other factors. Automated bid management is a good choice for advertisers who have a well-established marketing budget and can afford to spend a lot of money on advertising every day.
If you're just starting out with Google AdWords or if your sales depend on how much you spend on advertising, manual bidding might be the best strategy to use. This bidding strategy will let you control your budget, and it's especially useful when you're not sure how much each click on your ad will cost you.
If you have a larger advertising budget, automated bid management might be the best choice for your business. This type of bidding lets AdWords automatically adjust your bids based on what the system predicts will be the best return on investment for your business. Automated bid management is an especially powerful tool when you are running multiple ads and want those ads to automatically switch whenever it makes sense for them to do so (for instance, if one ad starts driving less traffic than another).
If you care about driving as many visitors as possible to your website, you might want to consider using automatic targeting. This type of bidding lets Adwords automatically adjust the amount you are willing to pay for each click based on factors like user position or the expected impact of a keyword in driving traffic and conversions to your website.
Optimizing bids is an important component of any Google AdWords campaign. If you're not careful, manual bidding might lead to higher costs because you are setting your max bid too high or low. Automated bidding is an effective strategy when it comes to driving traffic and conversions to your website, but it can be expensive if you don't monitor your ad performance closely enough.
Cost per acquisition (CPA) is the cost of acquiring a new customer, calculated by dividing the total marketing costs by the number of new customers acquired. It can be used as a measure of the efficiency of different marketing channels.
Cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. It's important to find a balance between your CPC and the traffic you're generating, as you don't want to end up spending more money than you're making from your ads. You can use the AdWords Keyword Planner to get an idea of what CPCs are for different keywords.
Robert Portillo is the founder of Nimbus Marketing. Nothing satisfies him more than expressing his thoughts well. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons. He can often be found at local farmer’s markets, hiking trails, and the beach.
