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Google bidding strategies are really helpful for advertisers like us to achieve their business goals. However, it’s crucial to choose the right bidding type and have a solid strategy for adjusting bids in order to reduce your ad costs.
If you’re not sure what you’re doing, you might end up spending your entire budget on just a few clicks. But with the right approach, you can greatly improve your campaign performance.
As trusted PPC experts in India, we will guide you through the basics of bid adjustments, different types of bidding strategies in Google Ads, and how to use them to your advantage.
A bid adjustment is a percentage you can add or subtract from your bid. You can use it to meet specific goals in your campaign. By adjusting your bids on keywords, you can match what other advertisers are paying. This helps you achieve good results while keeping your costs low.
Let’s look at an example to understand how to improve your campaign performance in India. If you want to reach more people in India, you can increase your bid by 30%. So, if your initial bid is ₹200, the final bid would be ₹260. Here’s the equation:
Initial Bid: ₹200
Increase: 30% of ₹200
Final Bid: ₹200 + (30% of ₹200) = ₹260
Now, let’s consider another scenario. If your campaign is not performing well on mobile devices and you want to reduce your bid from ₹200 to ₹140, you can select a decrease of 30%. Here’s the math:
Initial Bid: ₹200
Decrease: 30% of ₹200
Final Bid: ₹200 – (30% of ₹200) = ₹140
Also, take note that not all campaign types allow bid adjustments. If you’re unsure about how to add or remove bid adjustments on the Search Network or Display Network, it is advisable to consult a Google advertising agency for better results. Or you can simply follow these steps:
Google provides different bid adjustments with unique functions and specific ranges to consider. Let’s take a closer look at each of them to gain a better understanding.
If you want your ads to appear more frequently to users who search using mobile phones, desktop computers, or tablets, you can use device bid adjustments.
These adjustments apply to both your campaign and ad groups. However, keep in mind that when you set an adjustment for a campaign and an ad group within that campaign, Google will use the ad group bid adjustment to determine your final bid.
The range for device bid adjustments is from -100% to +900%. This means you can decrease your bid by 100% to stop your ads from appearing on a specific device or increase your bid by 900% to adjust the frequency.
When it comes to multiple device bid adjustments, if you set both, the adjustment for the ad group will take precedence over the one set for the campaign. The only exception is when you set the campaign-level device adjustment to minus 100%. In that case, Google will prioritize the campaign-level adjustment over your ad-level adjustment.
When it comes to showing your ads to the right people, location bid adjustments can help. You can choose to display your ads to audiences in specific countries, cities, states, or regions. Unlike device bid adjustments, this feature is only available for your campaigns and lets you make adjustments from -90% to +900%.
Remember, if you want to make different adjustments for the same location, they won’t be combined.
Sometimes you might want to run your ads for a specific period of time, like just a few hours, a whole day, or even a week.
Ad scheduling bid adjustments can help you control when your ads appear and how much you bid during those times. Like location bid adjustments, this feature is only applicable to your campaigns and allows adjustments from -90% to +900%.
If you’re targeting people who use mobile phones and you want to show them call extensions or call-only ads, interaction bid adjustments are useful. This feature is designed for campaigns in the new Google Ads experience and allows adjustments from -90 to +900%.
To make sure your ads reach the right people based on their age, gender, or income, you can use demographics bid adjustments. This type of adjustment works well for campaigns and ad groups in the new Google Ads experience. You can decrease your bid by 90% or increase it by up to 900%.
If you want to show your ads on popular or trending content on YouTube and the Google Display Network, you can use the top content bid adjustment. It’s like a special setting that applies to your ad groups and allows adjustments from 0% to +500%.
Targeting methods offer advanced options for bid adjustments. They help you with topics or placements for ads on the Search and Display Networks. These adjustments work for both campaigns and ad groups. You can decrease your bid by 90% or increase it by up to 900%.
If you want to show ads to people who have visited your website before, you can use remarketing lists for search ads. This advanced bid adjustment setting is available for campaigns and ad groups.
But keep in mind that you need to set up a remarketing list of your potential customers before going through this option. It has a range of -90 to +900%.
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Google Ads offers various bidding options to achieve different goals. In this section, we’ll explain each type and its recommended usage:
Target CPA bidding is a strategy you can use to improve conversions. If your main goal is to increase conversions in your campaign, choosing Target CPA bidding will focus on converting users at a specific cost.
Using this method, Google Ads will automatically adjust your bids for each campaign based on your CPA. While some conversions may cost more, others may cost less, balancing out to align with your costs.
Understanding your acquisition costs is important for Target CPA bidding.
Your Cost per acquisition is the amount of money you can spend on getting one customer.
For instance, if you sell a product for ₹200, it’s not wise to set your target CPA at ₹200. That would break even when your aim is to make a profit.
When you choose this bidding method, simply enter your desired CPA, and you’re all set!
Target Return on Ad Spend is a bidding strategy that confuses most people.
Unfortunately, you need to do some math for this one.
It is a bidding strategy that sets your bids to maximize the value you get from your ad spend. It’s based on the percentage you want to achieve.
Let’s give you a simple example:
In your next Google Ads campaign, you want to make ₹1000 for every ₹200 you spend. To calculate this, you can use the following formula:
Sales ÷ ad spend x 100% = Target ROAS
Using the example above, here’s what the Target ROAS would look like:
₹1000 in sales from campaign ÷ ₹200 ad spend (clicks) x 100% = 500% target ROAS
Pretty straightforward, isn’t it?
Here’s how you can use the Target ROAS bidding strategy when creating a new campaign:
If you’re unsure about the percentage to set, you can go to a previous campaign in Google Ads and modify your columns.
Add the following metric to your columns:
Conv. value/cost
Use the number from your most successful campaigns as your new Target ROAS.
Google Ads offers a simple bidding strategy called “Maximize Conversions.” It’s easy to use and can help you get the most conversions for your money. All you have to do is set your maximum daily budget, and Google will handle the bidding process automatically.
Let’s say your daily budget is ₹1000. Google will spend it wisely to find the best conversions within that budget. However, if a single conversion costs ₹1000, Google won’t bid on it for you.
Before choosing this bidding method, make sure your daily budget is set at a reasonable amount that you’re comfortable spending.
At the end of your campaign, check your return on investment to see if maximizing conversions led to profitable sales.
With this strategy, you don’t need to provide any additional details during setup except for your daily budget.
The maximize conversion value strategy is similar to Target ROAS. It aims to get the most out of your ad spending by using the Google Ads algorithm.
The algorithm will try its best to maximize your ad spend without requiring you to set a specific target ROI.
Simply put, Enhanced Cost per Click is a mix of manual and smart bidding. You set the basic CPC for your ad groups and keywords, but the algorithm takes care of optimizing them.
Google can increase or decrease your bid amount based on the chances of making a sale. The bids aim to even out at your maximum cost per click settings.
If a search is very competitive and the prices are too high, Google may lower your bid to save money because the chances of making a sale are lower.
If it’s easy to win by increasing the bids, Google will make that choice.
This type of bidding works for both the Search and Display networks.
You can choose if you want the algorithm to improve your set bids based on the number of conversions or to optimize for the value of the conversions.
This only works if you have different Google Ads conversions with different values or if you have dynamic conversion events that track the total value of a sale.
Maximize Clicks is a bidding strategy that helps you get the most clicks within your daily budget.
When you use Google Ads with this strategy, it focuses on getting as many clicks as possible.
However, it doesn’t consider if the traffic is good or relevant. So, if your goal is to increase sales or other conversions, this strategy may not be the best choice.
But if you have a limited budget or your campaign’s keywords are not searched for much, Maximize Clicks can still be a useful option.
Manual CPC Bidding gives you more control over how you bid. But having more control means spending more time watching costs and making adjustments on your own.
If you’re not familiar with Google Ads yet, this strategy might not be your best choice.
With Manual CPC, you set bids for different ad groups or keywords yourself. If certain search terms are more profitable than others, you can easily adjust budgets by adding or removing money from other campaigns.
If your campaign has many ad groups and keywords, using Manual CPC can be quite a task. You might also end up bidding for clicks that are unlikely to result in conversions.
By default, Google has the enhanced CPC option selected, so you need to uncheck it to opt for Manual CPC.
You’ll receive a warning that the campaign may perform poorly, but if your campaign lacks data or has a limited budget, it can be the best option.
The cost per thousand impressions (CPM) is the total amount an advertiser pays for showing their ad 1,000 times.
For instance, a CPM of ₹500 means spending ₹500 for every 1,000 times the ad is viewed.
Using vCPM bidding is a smart strategy for brand awareness campaigns. It works similarly to CPM bidding and is specifically designed for the Display Network and YouTube Ads.
With vCPM bidding, you set the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for 1,000 viewable impressions. On YouTube, an impression becomes viewable after 2 seconds of a video ad being played, while on the Display Network, it takes just 1 second for a display ad to be shown and counted as viewable.
Cost-per-view bidding is only for video ads on Google Ads and can be used on YouTube Ads too. With CPV bidding, you pay for video views or interactions.
Interactions on YouTube can be any of the following:
A “view” is when someone watches your video ad for a certain duration. In the case of CPV bidding, a view is counted if someone watches your ad for 30 seconds, the full ad if it’s shorter than 30 seconds, or if they engage with your ad in any way.
Let us give you a quick example of how it works.
To use CPV bidding, you start by entering the highest amount you’re willing to pay for a view or interaction. This is called your maximum cost-per-view.
For example, if you set your maximum CPV to ₹20, you will pay a maximum of ₹20 when a user watches your ad or engages with your call to action.
Now, how do you decide what to set as your CPV?
The Target Impression Share bidding strategy is all about making more people aware of your brand and reaching a wider audience.
Let’s say you want your ads to show up a lot when people search for specific keywords like “basketball shoes.”
You can set a goal for how many times your ads should appear. But remember, this goal is just a target, and it depends on how good your ads are and how much you’re willing to pay.
So, even if you want your ads to be seen 90% or 100% of the time, you might have to spend a lot of money to make it happen.
Also, just because your ads show up a lot doesn’t mean they’ll always be noticed or clicked on. Sometimes they might be shown in a less noticeable spot.
The Target Impression Share strategy works best for your own brand’s search campaigns and a few important search terms related to your brand.
Now, you might already know the basics of different bidding types on Google Ads. But how do you determine which bidding option is best for you?
The answer lies in considering your campaign goals, budget, and volume.
Each campaign requires a carefully selected bidding strategy based on your desired outcomes.
For example, if your goal is to increase sales on the Display Network, choosing CPM bidding is not ideal.
Now, let’s explore some common goals on Google Ads and the recommended bidding tactics for each one.
To boost conversions and drive traffic to your website or store for sales, consider these bid types for your Google Ads campaign.
If you want to focus on getting more visitors to your website and have goals beyond just converting, here are some excellent bid types to consider.
While many people don’t focus on brand awareness on the search network, there are some clever bidding tricks you can use to maximize branding.
So, you’ve learned how bidding works on Google Ads. You’re familiar with different bidding strategies and their pros and cons.
Plus, we’ve shared some useful tips to enhance your bidding strategy.
But remember, it’s not easy to choose the right bidding format when starting a new campaign on Google Ads.
There are many options to choose from, and if you lack experience with them, your decision could significantly impact your campaign’s success.
So, consider seeking help from PPC experts in India just like ours at Zib Digital India. Whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, we understand your unique needs and tailor strategies to maximize your advertising ROI. Our team utilizes the best bidding practices to ensure your goals are met.