Choosing the right PPC bidding strategy is essential to ensure a successful campaign. However, with endless bidding strategy options, from target CPA and ROAS strategies to Cost per Click or Maximise Conversions strategies, available in Google PPC Ads, it is understandable why so many people become overwhelmed and are unsure which one they should choose for their campaign.
In this article, we’ll deconstruct the most common types of bid strategies and explain when you should be using them.
What is a Bid Strategy?
Essentially, bid strategies control how you compete in the ad auction. Two main categories available today are manual and automated bidding. Each works differently to display ads for relevant searches. They both come with their pros and cons; some of them are discussed below:
1. Manual Bidding
This bidding method gives you more control by letting you set your own maximum cost per click (CPC) for your ads.
In this strategy, Google uses the set maximum CPC to determine whether your ads would appear in search results or not. Several other factors come into play, and given that all other bidders have the same quality score, while your bid is too low, Google would not display your ads.
Therefore, a lot of optimization for the keyword bids goes into manual CPC bidding to ensure your ads appear for relevant searches. However, this strategy lets you start with an absolute minimum CPC, gives you room to experiment, and enables you to adjust your spending to reach desired results.
2. Automated Bidding
With this strategy, Google takes control and alters your bid through their advanced machine learning and algorithms to increase your chances of hitting your KPI. On top of that, an automated bidding strategy saves a lot of account management time, and advanced AI ensures excellent results.
However, handing over your bidding control to Google can sometimes translate to high CPC rates and inefficient marketing budgets.
Determine Your Campaign Goals!
Before deciding which strategy to use, it’s essential to determine what are your goals for the campaign:
- Conversions: Specific actions like making a purchase or completing a form.
- Clicks: To drive traffic to your site.
- Impressions: Increase brand awareness.
Which Bidding Strategy For PPC Would Best Suit You?
Whether your goal is to get impressions, clicks, or conversions, bid strategies help achieve your goals. Let’s deconstruct 7 different strategies to see how they work and which campaign they would suit the best.
1. Enhanced Cost per Click (ECPC)
Campaign goal: Clicks & Conversions
This bid strategy is focused on getting more conversions through increased keyword bids for clicks that have high chances of conversion and decreased bids for clicks that have fewer conversion chances.
ECPC also allows you to set a bid cap to control the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for a click.
2. Maximise Clicks
Campaign goal: Clicks
This strategy optimizes your campaign by automatically setting bids using machine learning and algorithms to fully exploit your budget and get as many clicks as possible. However, this does allow you to set a maximum CPC limit to control spending.
3. Maximise Conversions
Campaign goal: Conversions
Just like the previous strategy, Google optimizes your campaign by using historical campaign information and evaluates contextual signals present at auction time to find an optimal bid each time your ad is eligible to appear to get the most conversions.
4. Target CPA (cost per acquisition)
Campaign goal: Conversions
With this strategy, you set a Target CPA to let Google get as many conversions as possible with the given target. Google will also recommend a target CPA based on your actual CPA performance if you have historical conversion data.
5. Target ROAS (return on ad spend)
Campaign goal: Conversions
With this strategy, Google’s objective is to generate as much conversion value as possible by optimizing bids. However, the requirement for using this bidding strategy, most campaign types need to have at least 20 conversions in the past 45 days.
Note: Google aims to meet your overall ROAS target. Therefore, some conversions may have a higher return, and some might not.
6. Target Search Page Location
Campaign goal: Brand Awareness / Impressions
With this strategy, Google automatically changes bid value to maximize the visibility of your ads by ensuring they rank at the top of the search results page. However, this does not ensure traffic, but you’re likely to get more clicks because of increased impressions.
7. Target Outranking Share
Campaign goal: Brand Awareness / Impressions
Google keeps adjusting your bids to help your ads outrank ads from competitors in this strategy. However, you can only target one domain to outrank with each bidding strategy.
After this breakdown, we are sure you are in a better position to decide which bid strategy would suit your needs and goals, how they work, and what you can achieve by implementing them.
If your target is to generate conversations, you can try Maximise Conversions, Target CPA, or Target ROAS. Whereas you can go for The Maximise Clicks and Enhanced CPC strategies if your goal is to drive more traffic on your website. Similarly, Target Search Page Location or Target Outranking Share are your best bets if you want to maximize your domain’s visibility.
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