6 TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE BID MANAGEMENT
BY HEIDI MCIVOR ALLEN
You may be wondering “if automated bidding strategies are handling my bids for me, then why do I need to pay attention to them?” The answer is simple: there are some things a digital marketing company can do for you and your campaign that automated bidding cannot. Here’s how McIvor Marketing will enhance your bid management.
TIP #1: TRACK EVERYTHING PROPERLY
We can’t stress this enough: without proper oversight, automated bidding strategies won’t generate the performance you want. If your marketing goals are to optimize your engagement, aside from just traffic, then conversion tracking is simply a necessity. In some cases, revenue tracking is beneficial as well.
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure”
– a favorite quote from Heidi McIvor-Allen, owner of McIvor Marketing
TIP #2: CHOOSE THE RIGHT STRATEGY
Once your conversions have been tracked properly, the critical next step is to choose the right bid strategy for your goals. Based on the marketing goals of your campaigns, McIvor Marketing will help match you with the right bid strategy for you that best fits with your desired outcome. Certain bid strategies are going to fit with your marketing goals better than others, so this step is crucial.
For example, if you’re trying to sell products online, users might be able to leverage anything from Manual CPC, to enhanced CPC, all the way through to Target CPA or Target ROAS bidding.
However, if you are trying to generate leads, users will be able to use Manual CPC, enhanced CPC, and Target CPA. Unless you are working with some solid CRM data, you likely aren’t going to see the benefit from Target ROAS bidding.
TIP #3: USE THE LEVERS YOU HAVE
Depending on what bid strategies you use, Google provides a decent amount of control to help influence the performance of campaigns.
For Impression Share bidding, you can choose whether they’re targeting all impressions, Top of Page, or Absolute Top of Page and then insert the percentage you have in mind.
The Maximize Clicks strategy can be a great way to drive volume, but if you’re trying to keep your CPCs down, you can leverage the Max CPC bid limit in the Settings section.
The same goes for Target CPA and Target ROAS within the Maximize Conversions and Maximize Revenue bidding strategies. You get to decide what goals you want your campaigns to shoot for and level the resources Google Ads already has available in order to make your goals a reality.
TIP #4: BE AWARE OF THE LEVERS YOU DON’T HAVE
- Time of the Day
- Day of the Week
- Audiences
- Location
- Device
- Demographics
Each of these modifications allows you to bid up or down on a percentage-level basis. This toggle allows you to be as aggressive as you desire to any specific subset of your audience.
But with automated bid strategies, the vast majority of these are removed. All decisions are left to the machine to decide in real-time. However, with the aid of McIvor Marketing, all of these modifiers and more are at your disposal for you to customize as you see fit.
TIP #5: UNDERSTAND HOW YOUR LIMITS IMPACT PERFORMANCE
Setting a Target CPA is a great way to control costs in Google Ads. With this level of machine learning, many advertisers get excited to consistently pull back on CPA targets, lowering them regularly to bring costs down – but setting Target CPA goals that are too restrictive can backfire.
If CPA goals are too low, Google will struggle to meet your performance goals and will begin restricting ad impressions. This lowers your overall number of impressions, clicks, and, eventually, conversions. Once your conversions get too low, your CPA spikes, effectively doing the opposite of what you want.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, if you raise your CPA target, Google usually gets more aggressive. User ads will be shown more often, typically accompanied by an increase in volume and costs.
TIP #6: KNOW WHEN TO CHANGE OR TEST OUT NEW STRATEGIES
HOW MCIVOR MAREKTING CAN HELP WITH
YOUR AUTOMATED BIDDING STRATEGY
Here at McIvor Marketing, we are consistently checking the status of your automated bids and tracking conversions. We have the marketing knowledge to know when it’s time to switch strategies, and we know not to panic if we don’t see results instantly. Things like this typically take Google three months to register, but with McIvor Marketing, you can achieve your campaign’s marketing goals faster and more efficiently.
What Business Services Does McIvor Marketing Offer?
We are so glad you asked! From setups to start-ups, to businesses in growth and transformation, McIvor Marketing specializes in a variety of services to meet your needs. Our Phoenix based digital marketing agency can help with website design & development, logo design, branding, off-line marketing design and strategy, paid search management, social media management, email marketing, display advertising and more!
Not ready to dive into hiring a full-time marketing director? Maybe you’re just curious about how your marketing is performing. We can help you set up trackable ways to measure your marketing ROI with a project-based digital audit to gauge current performance. We can also help you get your social media advertising portals set up. We also offer training on Google Analytics, Facebook Business Manager, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Canva, as well as how to plan content and brainstorm ideas to help you grow through research.
Check out our full list of services and reach out with any questions.
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