Best Google Ads Bidding Strategies and Pro Tips for 2024

As part of your whole outbound marketing plan, your Google Ads bidding strategy learning is a useful tool that should be examined properly. While not essential, they play an important role in improving and enhancing the effectiveness of your broader marketing efforts, especially when you consider seasonality and macroeconomic changes in your target market and buyer persona.

By providing the engine with your goals (as metrics: clicks, conversions, ROAS) and relevant parameters (the keywords your bidding strategy applies to, the maximum amount you want the strategy to bid under your name), the bid you selected Strategy can make split-second decisions about which auctions to participate in and how much to bid.

For example, Mobile drives conversions at a lower cost. If so, you should set a 20% positive mobile bid adjustment for that specific campaign to get more volume.

Remember that smart bidding is great at automatically capturing this and modifying your bids accordingly. They adjust bids based on various factors, including user action, device type, time of day, and more, to maximize clicks, conversions, or other campaign objectives.

When dealing with Google Ads, selecting the right bidding strategy may be the gap between campaign success and missed chances. And with so many bidding strategies available, picking the perfect one might feel like an overwhelming task.

Understanding Google Ads Auctions

Imagine you’re at one of those TV auctions where the auctioneer is yelling at you and you’re trying to bid on the items you want.

Here’s what goes on behind the curtain of Google Ads: except there’s no auctioneer, just lines of code that bid and deliver your ads to your audience, depending on the bidding strategy you’ve chosen. If you win, you’ll pay and earn clicks, conversions, or downloads.

But fear not – we’re here to help. In this blog, we’ll learn about Google Ads bidding strategies, what makes them special, and when to use them.

We can help you achieve any of your objectives, including increasing click-through rates, increasing conversion rates, and ranking highly on search engine results pages. We’ll identify the ideal plan to help you in reaching your marketing objectives.

What are bidding strategies in Google Ads?

Google ads work like an auction system, Google advertisements bidding allows marketers to place bids based on a range of criteria, including clicks, impressions, conversions, and the viewing of video advertisements.

Google is the world’s largest pay-per-click advertising platform. And like most digital advertising platforms, Google Ads operates on a bidding system.

Advertisers fight to have their advertisements displayed when people search for anything on Google. The rules are relatively simple: if you bid more and get a good ad score, you’ll get better ad placement (in search or on the Google Display Network).

The whole bidding practice is automatic and the algorithm takes into account many different factors, such as:

• Quality rating
• Ad and landing page relevance
• Target Audience relevance
• Competition

Based on all these features, Google Ads decides which ads to show and how much to pay per click.

But there is some flexibility. You can track their bids and adjust them to meet their marketing goals. Suppose, if you want to look more often in search results and on display ad systems, you can increase your bids on specific keywords or placements. If you want to save cash, you may also accept their less valuable bids for less desirable conditions and placements.

Depending on the campaign type, advertisers can also adjust their bidding strategy based on their advertising performance. For example, if a promoter wants to maximize clicks, they can use a manual or automatic CPC bidding strategy (such as Target CPA or Maximize Conversions). This will assist them in determining the most economical strategy to meet their advertising goals.

Manual Bidding and Automatic Bidding

There are three kinds of Google ads: manual and automatic

What is manual bidding?

Manual bidding is when advertisers set the maximum amount they are willing to pay for each click on a keyword or placement. The main advantage of learning bidding strategies is that they give advertisers more control over their budgets and allow them to adjust bids on specific keywords for managers and PPC specialists.

The disadvantage is that manual bidding can be time-wasted and prone to human error. Additionally, it can be difficult to keep up with the market.

What is automated bidding?

Automatic bidding eliminates manual work and allows Google Ads to automatically adjust bids based on real-time to achieve the best results. You can do this using a variety of strategies, such as:

• Target CPA
• Target ROAS
• Maximize Click
• Maximize conversions

Automatic bidding takes less time and can be more accurate than manual bidding. On the other hand, once you put your money “in the hands” of an algorithm (in this case, Google), you may not be able to track the performance of your campaigns as accurately as you would like.

What is Smart Bidding?

Smart Bidding is an automated bidding method created exactly for Google Ads. It takes into account a variety of factors, including user search queries, device type, and location to adjust bids in real time and find the most cost-effective way to achieve your goals in marketing.

Have You Tried Google Ads Bidding Strategies?

Manual CPC

Manual CPC bidding is a strategy where you can control the CPC for each keyword. You can set different CPCs for each keyword.

If you need to drastically reduce your advertising expenses but don’t want to lose too much market share too quickly, this is an excellent bidding approach.

This strategy is suggested for the campaign with a limited budget and specific target keywords.

Enhanced CPC (ECPC)

When you select Enhanced CPC(ECPC), Google can automatically increase or decrease your bid based on the probability of conversion.

Therefore, if Google thinks a conversion is likely, it will increase your max CPC bid by up to 10%. Additionally, if the conversion probability is low, Google may reduce the auction price by 10%.

This strategy is suggested for campaigns that have a limited budget and also don’t want to lose traffic beyond their bid limit.

Maximize Clicks

The Maximize Clicks strategy is used to increase the number of visitors to your website within your daily budget. Google automatically calculates your bids to help you maximize clicks within your budget. This strategy comes in two versions: the standard strategy for a single campaign and the portfolio bidding strategy.

We also have the option to set a maximum CPC to limit prices for contractors. This allows you to control sale prices without having to set them manually.

This strategy is suggested for most advertisers looking to generate quality traffic.

Maximize conversions

Maximize conversions bid based on previous campaign success and bidding data from the retailer’s competitors to get the most conversions at money at least. Since the goal of “Maximize conversions” is to generate as many conversions as possible, Google may decide to spend its entire daily budget to get as many conversions as possible.

This strategy is suggested for advertisers whose primary goal is conversions/leads for the managers or PPC specialists.

Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)

Conversions per Acquisition (CPA) is a smart bidding method that automatically sets bids to get as many conversions (the action of the customer) as possible. Optimizing Google ads bidding strategy with the Target CPA (Target Cost Per Action) option allows you to choose an average cost per conversion.

When a customer conducts a Google search for your product or service, Google Ads uses your target CPA to calculate your optimal bid based on its likelihood of converting.

When using target CPA bidding. Some conversions may cost more, and some may cost less than your target CPA, but overall, Google tries to maintain your target CPA.

This strategy is suggested for advertisers who want to convert at a specific cost.

Maximize Conversion Value Bidding

As part of Google Marketing Live 2024, the company revealed a new bidding strategy called Maximize Conversion Value. This strategy allows sellers to optimize ads based on parameters such as revenue or profit margin. Google then creates bids based on these goals to maximize possible ROI.

This strategy is suggested for e-commerce or transactional sites with payment gateway math on their website.

Target ROAS (return on ad spend)

The desired return on investment (ROI) is the average conversion value (e.g. revenue) for each dollar spent on advertisement. Remember that the return on investment (ROI) goal you choose can affect the number of conversions you get. For example, choosing a target that’s too ambitious could result in fewer visits to your ad.

We can set this as a percentage and Google will bid to achieve our target ROAS.

This strategy is suggested for e-commerce or transactional websites that have payment gateways on their website.

Target impression share

A bidding method that automatically bids to show your ad at the top of the page, at the top of the page, or anywhere above the Google search results page. This strategy is used to improve your ad’s chances of appearing at the top of the page.

This strategy is suggested for sites focused on brand visibility.

VCPM Bidding

VCPM means Cost per Thousand Visible Impressions. In display ad campaigns, bidding is used to pay for impressions rather than clicks. This bidding helps in displaying ads on Google Display Network.

This strategy is suggested for websites that are focusing on Brand visibility.

CPV Bidding

Cost-per-view (CPV) bidding is the most effective way to calculate the price you’ll spend for True View video advertising in Google Ads. Paying for video views or interactions (like clicks on CTA overlays to your website games of cards, and companion advertisements) is known as CPV bidding.

This strategy is suggested for websites that run YouTube ads and provide high-quality views for your videos.

CPI (Cost per Install)

CPI (Cost per Install) bids are only available for mobile app campaigns and are limited to mobiles only. This bidding strategy is used for the Universal APP Campaign to increase more installation of apps.

This strategy is suggested for Mobile Apps promotions only.

5 helpful Tips for Google Ads Bidding 2024

Now that you know all the different Google Ads bidding strategies, you can set up bidding for your ads on My Google. Then let’s move on to 5 different tips you can use to get the most out of your strategies.

1. Seasonal trends

For seasonal businesses, Google Ads performance fluctuates depending on the time of year. Conversion rates may decrease and cost per conversion may increase during off-busy periods, while busy times such as holidays may cause conversion rates to increase. Strongly adjust transactions during busy times but modify after the season ends. Analyzing seasonal trends is important to adapt your bidding strategy to changing demand.

2. Set bidding rules

In the Google Ads learning phase, you can set specific rules to automatically adjust your bidding strategy, and budget, and optimize Google Ads campaign bidding status based on certain conditions you choose. These recommendations can be used for your whole campaign, certain ad groups, individual advertisements, or keyword groupings. For example, you can create a rule that increases your bid by a certain amount of your cost-per-conversion is lower than your target value.To configure these rules, go to “Rules” in the Tools & Settings section or select a campaign, ad group, or keyword, click “Edit”, then select “Create automated rules” or “Move”.

3. Adjust bids based on sales, not conversions

In Google Ads, not all keywords are equally effective at generating sales. Measuring which keywords result in real sales—as opposed to mere leads—is important. Focus on bidding more strongly on keywords with high conversion rates, even if the cost per conversion is higher than the account average. The ultimate goal of a Google Ads bidding strategy is to maximize revenue and close more deals.

4. A/B test on different keywords and offers

Have you ever split-tested the offers on your landing page? If so, you may be aware of a significant impact on conversion rates and sales/closing rates.

5. Bidding on branded keywords

Bidding on branded keywords has many benefits beyond controlling your brand’s advertising message. This can improve account health; improve overall performance, and direct visitors to dedicated landing pages.Even if you get organic clicks on branded terms, considering bidding on these terms can yield positive results. It’s a smart move with long-term benefits beyond message control.

Conclusion
In the ever-changing world of Google Ads, the right bidding strategy is extremely important. Each strategy serves a purpose, each with its strengths and complexities. The better you understand them, the better your campaigns will perform. Choosing the right Google Ads bidding strategy is critical to campaign success.

Consider your goals (brand awareness, website traffic, or direct sales) and choose the right bidding method. With practice, you’ll improve your bidding skills for future campaigns. Mastering Google Ads bidding is an ongoing process, and we’re here to help! Are you ready to optimize your Google Ads campaign? Contact us today and let’s work together to enhance your digital presence.