When to Increase Bid in PPC

Developing an effective bid strategy is one essential aspect of your Pay Per Click (PPC) ad campaign.

Google offers ‘smart campaigns’ but devising a click-and-go advertising or PPC campaigns that actually works is still a fantasy.

So, having success with your manual bidding or automated bidding largely comes down to your strategy.

Of course, bid strategies are more complex than years ago and there are more features to consider.

As much as Google tries to make our lives simpler with automated bidding, you will still need to do your research.

Below is more information about bid strategy and when to increase your PPC bid.

Setting Your First Ad Bids

The perfect way to begin your Google Ad bidding journey is to use everything Google puts at your fingertips.

And that starts with the Keyword Planner.

This wonderful free tool will help you find new long tail keywords you didn’t consider – and it gives you a suggested bid based on how you set your advertising account.

Many experts recommend beginning viewing by looking at every keyword’s page 1 bid. Then maybe increase it by 25% to get to the middle of the page/landing page.

This will ensure your PPC ads are more visible but aren’t at the top of the heap (which will greatly increase your ad appears expenditures).

Let’s take a close look at several of the most popular automated or manual bidding strategies:

Target CPA – Cost Per Acquisition

This is a popular Google Ad Manual or automated bidding strategy that can boost your conversions while focusing on a specific desired result on the home page. If your goal is to reduce costs to generate more sales, Target CPA is a worthwhile choice.

That keyword that costs less per click doesn’t always mean it’s superior to one with a higher manual CPC bidding.

Additional site traffic at a lower CPC will not necessarily net your firm more money.

Target ROAS – Return On Ad Spend

Return on Ad Spend is also a great automatic bidding strategy that will help you reach the desired ROI.

With ROAS, you set your eyes on a certain dollar amount from total sales and not how many items your customers purchase. This is a useful method for products that cost more.

ROAS will adjust your strategy automatically and is based on your desired outcome or goal. Google will utilize conversion data from old PPC campaign to estimate possible conversion chances in the future.

Maximizing Conversions

This is an automated Google Ad strategy. It means the site uses AI to increase conversions and their values in your digital marketing campaign. Google looks at signals during the auction, including OS, device location, time of day, and more to boost your conversions.

Many marketers say Maximize Conversion’s can be best if you already have some conversion history in the books. But it’s not essential. Note, however, that this method could increase your costs a lot if the average spend is below the average daily budget.

Maximizing Clicks

This is like maximizing conversion’s is similar to Maximize Conversions. But the focus is on clicks, obviously. This can be what you want to drive prospects to your new website, so it works well for building audience and brand awareness. If your site doesn’t have conversion tracking set up, this strategy will set ad bids/adjust bids/manage bids to get as many clicks as possible.

When To Raise Your PPC Bids in Google

It’s generally considered prudent to raise your bids when you can net the most profitable traffic from the keyword. And you should probably lower your PPC bid when you can get traffic that converts but it’s too expensive.

Some additional factors regarding when to raise and lower bids:

• Different product margins: If a product is more profitable for you than others, you could consider lowering your bid.
• Varying seasons: Does your company sell more products and services before the winter holidays and less afterwards? You probably will consider raising your managing bids before the holidays because more companies will bid on the same thing.
• Overall competition: You may want to increase your bids based on your competitors, but that could make the product sale unprofitable.

Further, if your company goal is to reduce your cost per action or CPA, you should allow the keyword-level CPAs to tell you when to raise or lower your bids. Naturally, what you do will be different based on the keyword, but here are some guidelines:

If the CPA for a keyword is below your goal and is showing a lower ad position, many say to increase the bid. This boosts your ad higher on the page. Then, you have better advertisement visibility and additional clicks and conversions.

However, if the keyword has a higher CPA and is still in a top position, think about lowering the bid. Fewer conversions will be the result but it will reduce your CPAs.

Which Ad Strategy Should You Use?

Now that you know when it makes sense to raise your ad bid, let’s review how you figure out which bid strategy is best:

• Check the competition: Google makes it easy to see how many companies you have going for your keywords. Also, see how the other companies write their ads and review the landing pages. It also helps to review their copy and estimate what their minimum buys are and conversion rates.
• Quality of the ad: Do a test with bids that are higher. Testing the performance of the Google/search engines Ad fast is best. But you could need to begin with a high bid to see how the consumers respond.
• Best position: Going for the top spot isn’t always the perfect strategy and it’s expensive. For Google Ads to appear on partner websites, it’s fine to be the third or fourth one.
• Budget: How much can you spend every day consistently? Never bid on what your wallet cannot handle. But if you bid too low, the ads will never appear.

Establishing a Google Ad bidding strategy and knowing when to increase or decrease bids is complex.

That’s why many growing companies turn their PPC advertising strategy and campaign to a skilled and experienced contractor.

Need help with Google Ads management? Contact us, we can help!

• Author
• Recent Posts

Samuel Edwards

Chief Marketing Officer at PPC Agency

In his 9+ years as a digital marketer, Sam has worked with countless small businesses and enterprise Fortune 500 companies and organizations including NASDAQ OMX, eBay, Duncan Hines, Drew Barrymore, Washington, DC based law firm Price Benowitz LLP and human rights organization Amnesty International.

He is a recurring speaker at the Search Marketing Expo conference series and a TEDx Talker. Today he works directly with high-end clients across all verticals to maximize search engine marketing (SEM) ROI. Connect with Sam on Linkedin.

Latest posts by Samuel Edwards (see all)

• 5 Things You Need to Know About PPC Management for Dentists - November 12, 2024
• Using Pay Per Click (PPC) for Online Reputation Management - November 11, 2024
• How to Leverage the Creator Economy to Get More Sales - October 30, 2024