Author: Jake Harland, Paid Search Analyst at Visualsoft
Struggling to know what automated bidding strategy to select for your campaigns? Google Ads offers a range of different automated bidding strategies which can be applied across campaign types to meet your business goals.
Automated bidding can deliver better, more informed bids by using auction time bidding within Google Ads. Google Ads bidding algorithms use billions of combinations of signals at auction time to set bids.
Before selecting a bidding strategy, you must consider your goals with each bidding strategy within Google Ads as each one is suited to different advertising goals.
In this section, we will break down each automated bidding strategy so that you can select the right one for your business needs.
Maximising traffic to your website
Maximise Clicks is an automated bidding strategy that automatically sets your bids to generate as many clicks as possible within your set budget. This type of bidding strategy is ideal when first setting up your Google Ads account. This will allow your campaign to generate as much traffic as possible to your website.
For more control, restrictions can be put in place by setting bid limits within the campaign. This will mean at no time will the automated bidding strategy bid above your CPC (cost-per-click) bid limit in an auction.
It is important to note that Maximise Clicks isn’t available with the following;
- Display Network campaigns with the marketing objectives 'Engage with content' or App campaigns.
Maximising your conversions
Maximise Conversions is an automated bidding strategy that will automatically set bids to generate the most conversions for your campaign while spending your budget.
It is important that you have set up your conversion actions within your account. These actions could be calls, purchases, sign-ups and more. The Maximise Conversions bidding strategy will then aim to generate as many of these conversion actions as possible within the set campaign.
With Maximise Conversions, you can also set a Target CPA (cost per action), giving you more control within the campaign. Maximise Conversions with a Target CPA will aim to generate as many conversions as it can at the Target CPA which has been set.
This type of automated bidding strategy is best used when your business goal is to achieve a call to action on your website.
Maximise Conversion Value is a bidding strategy that aims to generate as much revenue as possible within the set budget.
A target return on ad spend (ROAS) can also be set within this bidding strategy to help control your campaigns. Maximise Conversion Value with a Target ROAS will aim to generate as much revenue as possible within the ROAS target that you have set. This type of bidding strategy is best used when users can purchase products through your website. The conversion action set-up would then record conversions with conversion value attributed to each sale.
Bidding strategies for efficiency
Target ROAS (return on ad spend) is a bid strategy that analyses and intelligently predicts the value of a potential conversion every time a user searches for products or services that you’re advertising. Then it automatically adjusts your bids for these searches to maximise your return on them.
Target ROAS can be applied as an individual bidding strategy, but they can also work in other bidding strategies such as with Maximise Conversion Value.
Target CPA (cost per action) is a smart bidding strategy that aims to generate conversions at a set cost. Target CPA will set a bid based on the likelihood that the user will convert. Target CPA is available as either a standard strategy in a single campaign or as a portfolio strategy across multiple campaigns.
Brand awareness
Viewable Impressions using Viewable CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) is a bidding strategy that allows you to pay only for ad impressions measured as viewable. An ad will be counted as viewable once 50% of your ad has shown for 1 second or longer on display ads or plays continuously for 2 seconds or longer for video ads.
You can select viewable CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) as a bid strategy when you choose CPM bidding for your 'Display Network only' campaign.
This bidding strategy is best used when your goal is to increase brand awareness. As your ad will be seen and can interact with a user without the user having to click through to your website.
Cost Per View (CPV) is a bidding strategy which is used for video campaigns. A view is tracked/counted once a user watches 30 seconds of your video ad. If the user interacts with the ad by clicking on any call to action this will then also count as a view. CPV allows you to set bids to a maximum amount you are willing to pay for each view.
In summary
To ensure that your Google Ads account is in line with your business goals, it is essential you select the right bidding strategy for your campaigns.
Below are our top 5 tips on using different bidding strategies;
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When using Target ROAS, only reduce or increase by 15% at a time
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Do not make any changes to your campaign during the learning period as this can reset the learning period
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Try and give at least 30 days' worth of data to optimise
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Do not be restrictive with your selected bidding strategy in key seasons such as Black Friday
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Ensure you provide the best possible assets for your bidding strategy to succeed
