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If you are here to explore how to change bid strategy in Google Ads so that you can get the most out of your Google Ads budget, then you are in the right place.
Our guide will not just help you with changing bid strategies; it will also cover the basics and advanced techniques that you can leverage to boost the performance of your ad campaigns.
So without any waiting, let’s get started.
Basics of Bid Strategies
Imagine you are running an online store selling handmade jewelry. Your jewelry collection is unique and beautiful, but it hardly reaches your target customer. In this, you decided to give a try to running Google Ads.
You get started with a small budget, and Google starts using that money to show your jewelry ads to your potential customers. To make it happen, you need to understand something called a “bid strategy.”
Google decides whether to show your ads or not by analyzing your bid strategy. It tells Google how much money you are willing to pay for each click on your ad.
Now, let’s come to the bid strategy, which has two types:
- Manual bid strategy
- Automated bid strategy
In manual bidding, you can control the bid price and set your limit, i.e., $1 per click. Automated bidding is more flexible. You just need to tell Google your goals, like getting more sales or website visitors, and Google uses its state-of-the-art algorithms to set the bids for you. We will explain them in detail later.
Meanwhile, the question arises: why would you change your bid strategy? Let’s say your business is reaching new heights. In this, you obviously like to spend more budget on ads. You might want to change your strategy to one that boosts your sales.
Or, you simply want to promote your brand name. The right strategy can make a big difference. It helps you control your ad budget while helping you reach your targeted goals.
How to Change Bid Strategy in Google Ads?
After knowing the basics, let’s find out how you can change your bid strategy in Google Ads.
The good thing is that it is a quite straightforward process.
- First log in to your Google Ads account.
- You will be welcomed to the Google Ads dashboard; here, click on the “Campaigns” tab.
- Select the campaign that you need to pick for, changing the bid strategy.
- Look for the Settings tab and choose ‘Settings’. Here you will find lots of settings options for your respective campaign.
- Under the Settings tab, look for the ‘Bidding’ option.
- Now, look for ‘Bidding Strategy’ and click on the ‘Edit’ button to make changes to the current ad strategy.
- Here you will find many strategies like Manual CPC, Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversions and more. Pick the one that aligns with your goals.
That’s it, you are done!
So, changing bid strategy is fairly simple, as promised, but the main challenge is optimizing it for best performance.
So, don’t stop here and continue reading to learn more about Google Ads bid strategy.
Understanding Different Types of Bid Strategies
Let’s continue the discussion using an online jewelry shop as an example. To reach out to more customers for your online jewelry store, you could take different approaches. You could try showing your website to a wide audience in the hope that someone will be interested in your products. Or, you could focus on targeting people who are already actively searching for jewelry online.
To fulfill any of these goals, you can use two main categories of Google’s ad bidding strategies that we have mentioned earlier.
Let’s first discuss the manual way.
1. Manual Bidding
Manual bidding lets you decide how much you want to pay for each person who clicks on your ad. For instance, you don’t want to pay a single penny above your fixed $1 price for each person. Technically, you are fixing the price for each customer.
How Does It Work?
Max CPC (Cost-Per-Click) Bidding: As earlier mentioned, in this method, you have the option to set the maximum amount for a click. It can be very beneficial for you if you can assume how much each click is worth to your business.
Who should use it? If you are the one that runs a small number of campaigns because they are easy to monitor, then you must go with manual bidding. You can opt for it if you have a limited ad budget or want to target a specific audience.
2. Automated Bidding
Now, let’s explore the advanced one. If you have a tight schedule and don’t have enough time to constantly manage your bids, then you can leverage automated bidding. This is an ideal choice, even for beginners. Unlike manual bidding, it has many types.
Here are some famous ones that you can use according to your goal:
Goal: Get website traffic and brand awareness
If your prime goal is to boost website traffic and brand awareness, then choose the ‘Maximize Clicks’ strategy. This strategy can be used by new advertisers or someone who wants to launch awareness campaigns for their new products. Maximize clicks strategy is also beneficial for people with a range of products.
Goal: Get as many conversions as possible
If you are really confident about your products, then feel free to choose the ‘Maximize Conversions’ strategy. It helps you optimize your ads to get targeted conversions. Maximize conversion strategy is the perfect choice for established businesses with conversion tracking set up. You can still give it a try even if your business is not an established one but you have a good range of products.
Goal: Acquire conversions at a specific cost
This is among the most unique features of Google ads. The Target CPA strategy helps you set the cost per acquisition. It means you can easily set a target cost you are willing to pay for each conversion. After bidding the right amount, sit back and relax. Google automatically adjusts your bids and helps you acquire conversions according to your target cost.
You can use Target CPA strategy for your business if you have a good understanding of your customer acquisition costs. Moreover, you clearly know how much each conversion benefits you. It is also beneficial for campaigns that have a strong track record of conversions.
Goal: Maximize return on ad spend
You can use the ‘Target ROAS’ strategy to boost your return on ad spend. For example, you want to generate $5 in sales after spending $1 on ads. Google automatically optimizes your bids so that you can achieve your target ROAS. This strategy can be leveraged by businesses that find setting and tracking return on ad spend metrics beneficial. Meanwhile, feel free to leverage this strategy if your campaigns are primarily focused on driving sales and revenue.
Goal: Leveraging manual and advanced bidding simultaneously
You might be thinking about trying a balanced approach. Fortunately, Google Ads has an option that lets you leverage manual and advanced bid strategies. The name of this strategy is ‘Enhanced CPC (eCPC).’
You just need to set a maximum bid amount, and Google will adjust your bids up or down according to its algorithm. If you are someone with theoretical knowledge of PPC and are looking to execute automated ads using your knowledge, then eCPC is an ideal choice for you. eCPC strategy will fine-tune your ad campaigns for optimal performance.
Basic Tips to Optimize Your Bidding Strategy
You must clearly understand that just using manual or advanced bidding strategies doesn’t guarantee good results. You need to monitor your ad campaign and continuously optimize it for better performance.
Here we are sharing some beginner-level tips that you can follow to expect better results:
Campaign Performance History
Before you jumpstart with any particular bidding strategy, it is important for you to go through your campaign’s past performance data. It will give you quick insights about things that are working for you. For example, if you see a drastic drop in clicks after a recent bid change, then you must consider changing or adjusting your strategy.
Conversion Tracking Setup
To get the most of an automated bid strategy, you must have proper conversion tracking set up. This becomes more important if your campaigns are focused on conversions, like “Maximize Conversions” or “Target CPA.”. Setting up conversion tracking helps Google Ads identify and optimize bids for actions that you define as valuable.
Budget Management
Without proper management, you will never achieve success in your PPC campaign. No matter what bid strategy you choose, it must give you results within your budget limitations. For example, if you choose ‘Maximize Clicks’ like aggressive strategy, it could drain all of your budget if you are not careful.
Learning Phase for New Strategies
Despite having huge datasets, Google still needs some time to understand your campaigns. It may take even more time if you switch to a new bid strategy. In this, have some patience and don’t expect any overnight success.
Monitoring and Adjustments
An automated bidding strategy definitely encourages you to set it and forget it. No matter which bid strategy you choose, take some time to monitor your campaign performance. Track key metrics like clicks, conversions, and cost-per-acquisition. If you find something fishy, then immediately take action and make the necessary changes.
So these are the basics. Hopefully, they are not tough to implement. If you agree with us, check out some advanced techniques.
Advanced Techniques for Optimizing Bid Strategy
It’s time to level up your bid optimization with advanced techniques. It may not be possible to leverage them instantly, but with time, you can get the most out of your campaigns using these advanced techniques.
Bid Adjustments
It is among the most powerful features of Google ads because it lets you refine your bids according to various scenarios. For example, you may want to pay more for clicks that are coming specifically from mobile devices or during peak shopping hours. You can leverage this technique to plan your ad budget efficiently.
Portfolio Bid Strategies
Managing multiple ad campaigns is quite a tough process. If you are looking for the best solution, then a portfolio bid strategy is something that you need to give a try. It allows you to create a group of similar campaigns and implement a single bid strategy for the entire group. It will not just help you save time, but you can get the most out of your little efforts.
Conversion Value Optimization
If you are using an automated bid strategy to get conversions, then know that you can take it one step further by assigning different values to various conversion types. For example, you find out that a single purchase is far more important than a newsletter signup. By using conversion value optimization, Google Ads will prioritize bids more for conversions that are important for your business.
In other words, you can set different price points for your product based on the materials and other features.
Leveraging Google Ads Scripts
Most of you might be surprised to know that you can run scripts for your ad campaigns. This feature is definitely for advanced users, and they obviously know about it. The quick thing is that you also need to give it a try just to know how it can change your whole strategy.
So what does it do?
Well, Google Ads scripts let you automate bid adjustments based on your preset rules. Google Ads scripts feature is ideal for managing large or complex campaigns, but the catch is that you must learn coding first. As you are here, it is clear that you don’t have much knowledge of Google Ads or are a beginner. So, don’t start your journey using advanced techniques; instead, clear your basics first.
Now, talking about which is the best ad strategy, don’t waste your energy looking for the answer. The key is to keep experimenting with different sets of datasets. Closely monitor what works best for you and what does not. With continuous effort and smart work, you will definitely master big strategy optimization.
Why Hire an Ad Management Company?
Although the whole article focused on empowering you to manage your Google Ads bid strategies, we still recommend you hire an ad management company. You know better that while focusing on the growth of business, sometimes it is best to prioritize things over learning.
And, here, hiring a PPC company can be your strategic move if:
Time Constraints
Running a business is itself a big challenge. In this, learning one more skill might not be feasible for you. On the other hand, managing ad campaigns requires time and effort. So, if you have a very tight schedule, then you must hire a company that can handle all of your ad management headaches.
Expertise and Experience
Ad management companies come with years of experience and expertise. They have a large team of experts who stay updated with the latest strategies and algorithms. They ensure your ad campaigns give you the highest ROI and ROAS by leveraging the latest features and best practices.
Improved Performance
A professional ad management company like Softtrix handles multiple clients’ ad campaigns. It empowers them to make the most suitable decision for your ad campaigns. They are best known for identifying and optimizing hidden opportunities that help you get more clicks, conversions, and a high ROI.
Campaign Scalability
You might be feeling comfortable managing your small-scale ad campaign, but how can you handle it when your business grows? To get uninterrupted ROI, you need to hire an ad management company. The big reason is that they can handle complex ad campaigns flawlessly.
A/B Testing and Data Analysis
A/B testing sounds easy, but in reality, it is not. You need to keep an eye on small details to find out what is working for you and what is not. A/B testing requires analyzing a huge set of data, which is sometimes impossible for an individual. Hiring professionals ensures you will get the best data-driven results.
Campaign Monitoring and Reporting
What is your frequency of checking reports and ad performance? We bet the number might be too low. Ad management companies generally have a separate team that will constantly monitor their clients’ ad campaigns. They will share with you regular reports and campaign performance in a simple and easy-to-understand way.
Access to Specialized Tools
Professional ad companies leverage special ad management tools and software that let them access more detailed insights and automate tasks. You can simply leverage the power of these tools and software without directly investing in them.
Conclusion
A properly optimized ad campaign can take your business profits to the next level. Now, it is up to you whether you want to manage your ad yourself or hire ad management professionals like Softtrix. We have provided you with both options, so take your decision wisely, keeping your business growth in mind.
8 replies on “How to Change Bid Strategy in Google Ads | Roadmap to Boost ROI”
Thank you for this insightful guide on changing bid strategy in Google Ads. It’s a roadmap to enhance ROI and effectively navigate the complexities of bid strategies.
A must-read for any marketer aiming to optimize their Google Ads performance!
Thanks for sharing!
The content is quite informative.👍👍🙌👏
Your article provides a clear roadmap for adjusting bid strategies in Google Ads to enhance ROI. Bid strategy changes can significantly impact campaign performance, and your insights make this process more accessible and actionable. Great job on breaking down this complex topic!
Your expertise in bid strategy adjustments enhances campaign outcomes, making this intricate topic more approachable and practical. Fantastic work in simplifying this complex subject!
Thanks for the helpful guide on changing bid strategy in Google Ads! It’s a roadmap to improving ROI. Great insights!
Informative Blog!