PPC advertising is a crucial tool for any business looking to boost their online visibility and attract more targeted traffic towards their websites. However, the success of your PPC campaigns may hinge on choosing a bid strategy that aligns with your specific business goals.
The right bidding strategy can make or break your PPC campaign, having ultimate authority over whether your efforts garner significant online success for your business, or work to waste both your time and money. In the article below, we will delve into the various PPC bid strategies currently available across Google PPC Ads and various other PPC platforms, helping you to determine which approach is best suited to your digital marketing objectives and business goals.
Understanding PPC Bid Strategies
Simply put, a PPC bid strategy is a methodology for how you choose to manage your ad spend in relation to the placement of your ads, with each strategy serving different goals and operational styles. Your choice of bid strategy can affect everything from how you compete in ad auctions to how effectively you achieve ROI.
Understanding the intricacies of each available bidding approach can help you to optimise your campaigns to achieve specific business objectives.
Manual Cost Per Click (CPC)
Manual CPC bidding provides direct control over keyword bids, allowing advertisers to set the maximum cost-per-click bid for their ads. This strategy is ideal for those who want to have granular control over their campaigns and have the time available to manage and adjust these bids regularly.
Best For: Businesses that require precise control over bids and have the capacity to monitor and adjust bids regularly.
Considerations: Manual CPC is a strategy that requires a lot of time and attention to manage effectively, especially in competitive sectors where bid adjustments may be needed frequently to remain competitive.
Enhanced Cost Per Click (ECPC)
ECPC offers a semi-automated, hybrid approach by which advertisers are able to set their bids manually, while also allowing Google to adjust them at its own discretion in order to maximise conversions. With enhanced cost per click bidding, Google has the power to increase any set bid amount by up to 30% if a click is deemed likely to lead to a conversion. This is a strategy combines manual bidding with a smart component that increases or decreases bids based on the likelihood of a sale or a conversion.
Best For: Advertisers who want some level of control over their bids and total spend, but also wish to leverage Google’s machine learning to optimise for conversions.
Considerations: While ECPC bidding can help to improve conversion rates, advertisers must relinquish some control over their bids, meaning spend can become less predictable.
Maximise Clicks
By choosing to maximise clicks, advertisers are opting for an automatic bidding strategy that works to garner as many clicks as possible within the pre-determined budget. This approach is perfect for businesses focused on increasing website traffic rather than conversions.
Best For: Campaigns where the primary goal is to drive traffic, such as during brand awareness phases.
Considerations: Since the primary focus is to maximise clicks, conversion quality may vary, and costs can escalate if not monitored closely.
Maximise Conversions
If your goal is to get as many conversions as possible within a given budget, this strategy automatically sets bids to help achieve that, allowing advertisers to get the most conversions from their campaign as their pre-determined budget will allow.
Best For: Advertisers looking to get the highest possible conversions with an existing budget.
Considerations: In order for this bidding strategy to be successful, conversion tracking must be set up correctly. There are a number of conversion actions that you should be tracking, and a certain amount of pre-existing conversion data that is needed, in order for this strategy to perform optimally.
Target Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
A CPA bidding approach focuses on converting users at a specific acquisition cost, making use of historical information from your pre-existing campaign to automatically find an optimal CPC bid for your ad each time that it’s eligible to appear. This strategy is ideal if you know how much you’re willing to spend for each conversion and need to meet a consistent acquisition cost.
Best For: Advertisers who know their desired acquisition cost and have a flexible budget to allow for initial learning phase adjustments by Google.
Considerations: Requires conversion tracking and performs best with a certain amount of conversion data. Initial settings may need several adjustments to align with performance goals.
Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
For campaigns where revenue is the primary focus, a Target ROAS bidding approach aims to achieve an average return on ad spend that you specify. Google will adjust your bids to maximise conversion value and revenue while trying to reach the target ROAS percentage.
Best For: E-commerce businesses with specific profitability goals and enough data to predict reliable outcomes.
Considerations: Like Target CPA, a Target ROAS bidding strategy depends heavily on historical data and accurate tracking of conversion values.
Target Impression Share
A Target Impression Share bidding strategy is typically used when brand visibility is the goal, aiming to show your ads at the top of the page, or anywhere within the Google search results, at a rate that you define. This approach makes use of PPC automation to set bids that achieve the desired impression share percentage of your ads.
Best For: Brands prioritising visibility over direct conversion goals, such as in competitive keyword markets. This is a bid strategy that provides advertisers with an ideal way to get more people searching for your brand online.
Considerations: Can be expensive as advertisers are essentially bidding for their ranking position, and there’s potential for high spend without corresponding returns in terms of direct conversions.
Choosing the Right Strategy for Your Goals
Choosing the right bid strategy for your PPC campaigns is crucial, having direct influence upon how effectively you use your advertising budget to meet your specific business goals.
The correct strategy can work to ensure that every penny spent is optimised towards achieving your desired outcomes, whether that’s maximising visibility, increasing traffic, generating sales, or maintaining a specific cost-per-acquisition.
A well-chosen bid strategy allows advertisers to compete more effectively in ad auctions, enhances the likelihood of ad placements being more successful, and directly impacts the ROI of the campaign. Without a carefully selected bid strategy tailored to specific campaign goals and market conditions, businesses risk overspending on underperforming ads or missing out on potential conversions.
Understanding and implementing the right bid strategy is not just a matter of choice, but a fundamental aspect of sustaining successful, cost-effective PPC campaigns. So, how do you determine the best PPC bidding strategy for your business goals?
Define Your Objectives
Before selecting a bid strategy, clearly define what you want to achieve with your PPC campaigns. Are you looking to drive traffic, increase sales, enhance visibility, or achieve a specific cost-per-acquisition? Your end goal will significantly influence your choice of bidding strategy, so make sure to consider this thoroughly.
Consider Your Budget
Some strategies require higher spend than others, so choosing the approach for your advertising goals is the first step in managing your PPC budget effectively.
Strategies that work to maximise clicks or impression share can consume your budget quickly without necessarily driving any conversions or revenue to show for your efforts. On the other hand, Target CPA or Target ROAS bidding strategies require a thorough understanding of your conversion metrics, but can work to optimise spend for a better ROI.
Understand Your Market and Competition
The level of competition in your market can affect your bidding strategy. In highly competitive markets, strategies like Target Impression Share can be costly. In such cases, strategies that focus on maximising conversions might be more beneficial.
Evaluate Your Keywords
The type of keywords you target—whether they’re high intent, branded, or long-tail—can also dictate the appropriate bidding strategy for your PPC approach. For instance, competitive, high-intent keywords might require a more aggressive strategy like Target CPA to effectively compete in the auction.
Leverage Technology and Data
Utilise analytics and machine learning tools provided by platforms like Google Ads. These tools can help you to understand consumer behaviour through data analytics, allowing you to analyse the performance of different bid strategies and make informed decisions based on data, getting the most from your business’s PPC efforts.
Testing and Adjustments
Once you choose a bid strategy, continuously monitor its performance and make adjustments as needed. Market conditions, competitive actions, and changes in consumer behaviour can all influence the effectiveness of your chosen strategy, so regular testing and optimisation are crucial for maintaining the efficacy of your ads and PPC approach.
Hiring an Expert for Improved PPC Management
For businesses with limited experience with PPC advertising, choosing to work alongside a reputable PPC agency or marketing consultant can be particularly beneficial, helping to improve the management of your campaigns and garner better results from your advertising efforts. Agencies that specialise in PPC advertising are able to bring a deeper understanding of strategic bid management, keyword research, and data analysis to your business’s paid ad strategy, which are areas that can often prove complex and time-consuming to master. This level of expertise can help businesses to avoid common pitfalls that commonly lead to wasted Google Ads budget, working to ensure that campaigns are set up for success from the very start.
By leveraging the skills of an experienced PPC consultant, businesses can free up valuable time to focus on other critical components of their business operations, such as customer service and employee management. Investing in external management can pave the way for PPC that enhances the customer experience and contributes towards your long-term digital marketing success.
Ensuring that you choose the right PPC bid strategy for your paid advertising campaign requires a deep understanding of not only your business goals, but also current market conditions and the specific dynamics of various PPC platforms such as Google Ads. By carefully assessing each strategy in line with your objectives and continuously refining your approach based on performance data, you can work to significantly enhance the success of your PPC efforts, driving meaningful business results.