Last Updated on 2020-10-12 by ppcguybklyn
Ever since Google Ads introducedoptimization scores, we could often find the best way to increase them is to set our ad campaigns to auto bidding. Usually, after setting a campaign to auto bidding, its optimization score could go up at least 15% to 20%. But can auto bidding truly help us solve our problems? Can we really leave everything to the algorithm and don’t have to do anything after setting the campaigns to auto bidding? In this article, I will introduce the auto bidding strategies that are currently available on Google Ads, the best timing to use them, and things we need to be aware of while using them as PPC specialists.
What do auto bidding strategies do?
To make paid search specialists and Google Ads users stop worrying about manually calculating and adjusting the best bidding prices, Google published auto bidding strategies that utilize machine learning to find the best price. These strategies can adjust the bidding prices of the ad campaigns based on performance and campaign goals. We could categorize auto bidding into two types: conversion focus and exposure focus.
Conversion focus
Maximize Conversions
Maximize Conversion Value
These two auto bidding strategies are very familiar. They will both try to find the best bidding prices for conversions based on campaign budget.The difference is one is set to find the most amount of conversions and one is set to find the highest conversion value. If an ad campaign’s goal is to make sure more people could complete conversion action on the landing page, then these two strategies would be a good choice.
Target ROAS
Target CPA
If our campaign goal is to maximize efficiency, then Target ROAS and Target CPA would be a good option for auto bidding. As the names suggest, these two bidding strategies are designed to find the most efficient bidding patterns within the set budget. The difference between these two is Target ROAS is set to find expected conversion value within our budget and Target CPA is set to lower the cost per conversion to be the designated number.
The most important thing while using conversion focus auto bidding strategies is making sure we have fully optimized the three elements of PPC ads: keywords, ad copies, and landing pages. These three things need to be closely relevant to each other. We also need to ensure the current ad copies have a strong click through rate (CTR) so that when we hand our campaigns over to auto bidding strategies, they can work as they are designed to.
Exposure focus
Maximize Clicks
This is the simplest and straight forward auto bidding strategy. It is designed to attract the most amount of clicks within the set budget. If our goal is to gain website traffic or if we are certain that our ad campaigns and website have high conversion rates, we could consider using this strategy to gain as many clicks as possible.
Target Search Impression Share
I’ve introduced the concept of impression share inmy previous articleso I won’t dig into the details. This auto bidding strategy is to ensure we get the impressions we are subjected to among our competitors. If our campaign goal is to raise brand awareness or if we need to make sure the strength of exposure for our ads, we could consider picking this bidding strategy.
Exposure focus bidding strategies are extremely useful when it comes to building and strengthening brand image in Google search. Especially if we are using Target Impression Share alongside with our SEO keywords, we would have a really high chance of securing top position for both paid search and organic search results.
Preparation before using auto bidding as a PPC specialist
We mentioned the things we need to prepare before using conversion focus auto bidding. Other than that, there’re a few things we need to check before deciding to switch bidding strategies.
- Confirm campaign goal
Regardless of the type of the optimization, our first step will always be fully understanding the ultimate goal of the ad campaign. Is it to gain traffic or is it to gain conversion? If it’s the latter, do we go after maximum profitability or maximum efficiency? These are the questions we should be asking before picking an auto bidding strategy and we should act while having a clear answer in mind.
- Know the budget and bidding prices of the campaign
Before choosing auto bidding strategies, we need to know the expected budget and CPC of the campaign so that we could have a clear target for the algorithm. We would also better understand the performance of the strategies when we are reviewing the metrics. If the ad campaign could reach our goal with manual bidding, we don’t necessarily need to switch to auto bidding just to boost our optimization score.
- Reserve some time to collect data
To fully utilize the algorithm of auto bidding, our ad campaigns must have sufficient data to reference to. If a campaign just started with no conversion, then it probably wouldn’t do any better when we switch to max conversion due to lack of data. The better way would be letting the campaign run for two to three weeks, then use the data to determine if we should use auto bidding strategies.
Things we need to be aware of after switching to auto bidding
After deciding to use auto bidding, it doesn’t mean we could just lay back and watch. There are still details we need to be aware of to make sure our campaigns are fully optimized.
- Change in CPC
My experience is that once picking auto bidding, the CPC of the campaign could be significantly higher than the CPC using manual bidding. Because if we are using max clicks or max conversion, the algorithm could try to gain higher quality traffic by raising the bidding prices to fight for better positions. Therefore, we must pay close attention to our CPC after switching to auto bidding. If the algorithm raises the CPC to a value that we cannot accept, we need to adjust our keyword list and remove the keyword with high competition but low conversions so auto bidding won’t spend money on the wrong place.
- Monitor the actual performance of the campaign
As long as we are using strategies with set targets (ROAS, CPA and search impression share), we need to monitor the actual performance of the campaign after switching to auto bidding. For example, if we set the target ROAS to be 700% but the actual performance is only 450%, we might want to consider adjusting the target to a more realistic number.
- Adjust our campaign accordingly
As mentioned above, it is very important to adjust our keywords, ad copies and landing pages according to the campaign performance. Adjust keywords when we see high CPC, edit ad copies when we see low CTR, edit landing pages when we see low conversion rate ect… Personally I wouldn’t recommend switching to another auto bidding strategy when the campaign is not performing well. Because doing so would waste everything the algorithm has learned and it would have to collect data and learn again based on the new strategy. Making sure our campaign is fully optimized before switching strategy would be a better approach.
Conclusion
Auto bidding strategies could make the life of paid search specialists much easier and allow us to be able to focus on other important things like keyword research or copywriting. However, it doesn’t mean auto bidding is the solution to all of our problems, it must be accommodated with according and continuous adjustment and optimizations to maximize its full potential. It is the responsibility of a PPC specialist to find the best auto bidding strategy for each campaign and make sure the campaigns have all the elements to support the algorithm.
