Bidding strategies on Google Ads: How can they help you?

"One bad move cancels out forty good ones."

Bernhard Horwitz

In a chess game, one wrong move can spoil everything ... and the same thing happens in Ads campaigns.

The application of a good bidding strategy in Google Ads can be one of the bases for the success and performance of your campaigns according to the objective that we have set.

Perhaps your goal is a higher return on investment or perhaps the authority that denotes a good position in the Google search engine, so we can apply more than one strategy in our ads according to the strengths of each one, distinguishing between Strategies of Manual Bidding and Automatic Bidding Strategies.

And what difference is there between them?

I'll show you right away, but I'll tell you something:

The basic difference will lie in putting control of your strategy in your hands or in Google's.

Before starting

Let me make a small point.

Google marks by default "Conversions" as the objective of our campaign, but we can change it in the same drop-down menu to other options:

• Conversions

• Conversion value

• Clicks
  
  
• Impression share

What this little questionnaire tries to do is apply a bidding strategy according to your objectives if you are not familiar with the terms of Ads. However, it is advisable (even if Google says otherwise) is to select directly ourselves one of the strategies offered in the link below.

So now, let's look at those strategies!

1. Manual bidding strategies

1.1. CPC Manual

(When starting the Manual CPC option, we will realize that the Enhanced CPC option will be checked by default, which will make your type of strategy have an automated part. If we uncheck it, we will continue with total control of this strategy manually).

Manual CPC is the only type of manual strategy available, and its characteristics give us an idea of ​​the main differences between Manual Bidding Strategies and Automated Bidding Strategies.

• In this case, we can define the maximum CPC we want for each keyword, which will give us greater control of our budget.
  
  
  
• We will have to take care of all the adjustments to the offer that are necessary for a stable performance over time, having to analyze each bid individually. This will entail a considerable time investment that will grow the more your campaigns do.
  
  

This strategy gives us the greatest control at the level of keywords for each offer, being able to modify them according to their profitability or if any change has been made in the offer that may affect its performance.

Therefore, this may be the most appropriate bidding strategy if you do not have previous experience in Google Ads, or if you are looking to work with a new group of keywords or a new campaign.

Now let's see what we find when we check the option "Enhanced Manual CPA".

1.2. Enhanced CPC

As mentioned above, this Enhanced CPC strategy draws on some of the Google Ads machine learning resources.

The difference with Manual CPC is that despite being able to still define the maximum CPC for each keyword manually, the Enhanced CPC strategy will make Google take care of adjusting the CPC automatically when it thinks there is a good chance of conversion. In this way, we can achieve more conversions with the same cost, although we may find that Google sometimes exceeds the established CPC limit for a few days if this gives us an interesting conversion.

To use it, it is necessary to activate Google Ads conversion tracking, so it is recommended for accounts that have a high volume of conversions to have results with which to compare and make adjustments.

2. Automatic bid strategies

**Note:

The following automated bid strategies can be applied to more than a single campaign, keyword or ad group with similar or identical objectives, known as Portfolio Bidding Strategies.

2.1. Target CPA

The Target CPA strategy is based on adjusting to our budget, since our objective will be to achieve as many conversions as possible in relation to the CPA (cost per acquisition) that we have set, so that Google's automatic system does not consume our daily budget.

But be careful here.

If we set a CPA too low, the performance of your campaigns will suffer.

Why? Well, because you will not be given scope for the machine learning system to obtain information with which to work, so when starting with this type of strategies, we will have to maintain an optimistic attitude until we see the results.

To use the Target CPA, it will be necessary to have activated / configured the conversion tracking with at least 20 days of active campaign. This will give Google enough data to learn and show your ads to users who are more likely to convert. Therefore, it is best to initially use the “Maximize Conversions” strategy and move on to this strategy once we have obtained sufficient data.

A main disadvantage of this strategy is its tendency to offer lower and lower volume over time, whether or not it has enough conversion data.

2.2. Target ROAS

The objective ROAS strategy aims to obtain a greater profitability of our budget, taking care of increasing or decreasing the offer according to the probabilities of generating a conversion and what the value of each one will be.

In this case, we will simply have to indicate the% of ROAS that we have as a target so that it adjusts to it.

As in other types of strategy, we must have a conversion database powerful enough so that Google can make use of its machine learning and improve its behavior in the strategy, so that it will be necessary to have configured the conversion tracking of Ads and have at least 20 conversions in the last 45 days.

It will also be necessary to weigh the fact that, as with the Target CPA strategy, there may also be a volume limitation over time, so it will be necessary to see if it is a point that compensates us for our objectives of Ads campaign.

2.3. Percentage of Higher Ranking Target

Ads strategies based on branding, beyond direct profitability, will also be important to reinforce the brand image for your target audience.

The Target Higher Ranking Percentage strategy will take care of this through preferential positioning in search results. Specifically, above the competition (or the domain that we indicate).

In fact, we can select if we want them to appear anywhere on the page, at the top or directly at the first in the list.

For our part, we will have to indicate what percentage of impressions we want, being careful not to be too high, since it could be difficult to reach if your brand is not powerful enough.

Another interesting aspect of this strategy is that we can establish a maximum CPC that Google will respect when obtaining that percentage of impressions, whatever it is, so that your budget does not skyrocket. This should be taken into account for the most powerful or most competitive keywords, knowing that the CPC limitation can cut the wings of the Ads system to obtain the best results.

It must be clarified that this strategy does not guarantee positioning, since Despite improving the ranking by increasing bids, there are other factors to take into account, such as the Quality Score.

2.4. Maximize Clicks

If your goal is to attract as much traffic as possible to a certain website, the Maximize Clicks strategy is what you are looking for.

And how it works?

Well, in this case, we will establish a target cost so that Google automatically decides the bid cost, adjusting to the budget we have, to get the highest number of clicks on the keywords.

The bid limitation in this strategy is especially important, since Google could skyrocket spending in order to get the highest number of clicks. Otherwise, this type of strategy would only be contemplated for cases in which we do not care to have control of the CPC or the bid cost.

2.5. Maximize Conversions

When your goal is to achieve as many conversions as possible, without having to adjust to a specific CPA, the Maximize Conversions strategy fits the bill.

Here the Ads system will automatically determine the CPC bid that best suits your ad based on your budget.

But be careful, because this strategy could make your daily budget run out quickly, since Google will try to spend everything searching and testing different tests, so we must be attentive to its balance day by day, in addition to checking that the campaign is not configured with a shared budget.

When to use this strategy?

When you already have enough conversion data available in your account, when your conversions have approximately the same value and there is not too much imbalance between them or directly, if there is no need to control the CPA.

2.6. Maximize Conversion Value

Finally, with the Maximize Conversion Value strategy, you can maximize the value of your campaign's conversions without going over budget.

This bidding strategy has the peculiarity that it is only available for Search campaigns.

To use it, we must activate conversion tracking with specific transaction values, since this strategy uses the data from your campaign history and contextual auction indicators to automatically find the optimal CPC bid for the ad delivery.

It should be noted that this strategy can spend your entire daily budget, which can cause this part of the investment to skyrocket and your ROAS not showing the good health that you would like.

However, you can add a target ROAS to your bidding strategy to be careful at this point.

3. Extra: The alternative to Google strategies

I'd like to clarify a general point about using Google's automated bidding strategies:

Actually, what we are applying to improve our campaign are semi-automated strategies.

I explain.

The use of these "automated" services offered by the Ads platform, involves the automation of only certain parts of our overall PPC strategy. But the management of an Ads campaign involves many fronts beyond bid and budget management, which Google does not contemplate: search and incorporation of new keywords, negativization of them, generation of new ads, A / B tests, segmentation of the audience…

All of this can become an infinite process that is becoming more and more unfathomable as your campaigns become more complex.

Even more so if we want to open the doors to the possibilities offered by working with Long-tail keywords, something fundamental to be able to respond to the changing needs and search intentions of your audience, but without an automatic management process behind it, it ends up becoming an absolutely unfeasible option.

An alternative to not end up living glued to the computer? The automation tools.

But real automation. Full.

A solution to fully grow your campaigns by taking advantage of all the available opportunities.

And at Quarizmi we can offer you that solution with our services. Check out!

And well, those were the strategies I wanted to share with you! I hope it has helped you to get an idea of ​​how to better focus your Ads strategy and perhaps discover other possibilities that you did not contemplate a priori

As always, thank you very much for your attention! And if we don't see each other before ...

Merry Christmas!!!

AL