Whilst understanding PPC (pay-per-click) advertising can feel overwhelming if you’re new to it, setting up paid advertising is often vital for seeing success online. It pays to understand exactly where budgets are going. And with 41% of all clicks going to the first three paid ad positions on channels like Google Ads, it’s more important than ever.
One aspect of PPC campaigns that needs to be set up and managed effectively is your bidding strategy. This is how you determine how much each click costs, and why. There are lots of different strategies here, depending on the platform you’re advertising through, and they have their advantages and disadvantages. So we’ll go through what they are and how they differ so you can make a more informed decision for your business.
Before we get into the nitty gritty of bidding strategies let’s first take a quick look at how bidding works.
When you submit a bid, it’s typically put through an auction system, in which you compete against other advertisers for valuable spots in the search engine results page (SERP), or on the feed in the case of social media. This auction process happens almost instantly behind the scenes when ads are presented to potential visitors.
You will place bids based on all manner of adjustments and the value of the click could be impacted by the keyword that brought it in, the type of person that clicked, and even the time of day. And of course the value of the click will determine how much people are willing to pay to receive it.
Bid based strategies are split into automated and manual strategies, with automated by far the most common and with the greatest degree of variation.
Manual strategies are the most basic and, as the name suggests, require you to adjust your bids manually based on past keyword performance.
When used correctly, manual bidding can return excellent results due to the control it gives you over maximising your conversions. Rather than relying on algorithms, you’re putting in the work yourself. However, manual bidding takes up considerably more time as you need to optimise constantly. Additionally, you won’t have access to the same level of data that you would with an automated bidding strategy.
You can have some automation within a manual bidding strategy and this comes in the form of enhanced CPC (ECPC) - an optional feature which modifies your manual bids based on how likely a click is to lead to a conversion in order to maximise your conversions.
ECPC is a great option because it gives you some advantages of automated efficiency whilst still offering manual control. However, it’s important to note that ECPC can raise your average CPC and requires conversion tracking to guide bid adjustments.
Automated strategies use machine learning and historical data to place bids on ads based on your desired strategy. This can save significant amounts of time versus manual bidding, and the algorithms used by PPC platforms tend to have access to significantly more behind-the-scenes data.
Key strategies for automated bidding include:
One of the most basic types of automated strategy, this simply attempts to get as many clicks as possible within your budget. Good when starting out or when conversion data is limited, but it may not bring in the highest quality of traffic.
When you set your budget, the ad platform will try to get you as many conversions as possible within that budget. Since it bases its strategy on historical data, you will need to have had a PPC campaign that has been running for at least a few weeks, and it’s critical that conversion tracking is accurate.
This is one of the strategies that’s derived from maximising conversions, but your ad platform will aim to get you new leads/customers at the target price you have specified.
Using data from past campaigns, the ad platform will anticipate your expected ROAS and adjust your bids accordingly. However this method only works if you have conversion tracking enabled and you have campaigns that have been running for a while.
This maximises the total value of your conversions within the budget you have specified. It differs from maximum conversions, as the main goal is to get the most valuable customers as possible, rather than just the most customers.
In super competitive spaces especially when traffic is limited, it can sometimes be valuable to try and ensure you’re seen more prominently and often than your competitors. This bidding strategy aims to get you a larger share of the search market.
Which strategy is right for you is dependent on many factors such as how much knowledge of PPC you or your team has, how much time and resources you have to invest in your campaigns, and your campaign goals.
Manual strategies offer more control over maximising conversions and are ideal for when you’re first starting out and you don’t yet have enough data to transition to automated bidding strategies. However, they take up considerably more time and require constant monitoring and reiterations to achieve the desired results.
Automated strategies do give you slightly less control, but by allowing machine learning to leverage vast amounts of data to make informed decisions for you, the process is much less time consuming and can lead to noteworthy outcomes.
Ultimately, any strategy can yield excellent results when done correctly, and different niches will lend themselves to different techniques.
If you’d like expert help setting up or managing your PPC campaign, get in touch with us today.
