Have you ever been at the point of setting up a new Google Ads campaign or tweaking an existing campaign and wondered, “What is the best bid strategy for my campaign and current objectives?”

If so, you’re not alone. In this guide, we’ll explore the various bid strategies available, their benefits, and how to choose the right one to meet your specific business objectives.

When setting up a new campaign, the first thing Google Ads asks is about your objectives. Are you focused on conversions like form fills, phone calls, or product purchases? Or are you simply looking to generate traffic? The right bid strategy depends on these objectives.

The Main Bid Strategies

We’ll focus on bid strategies for search campaigns, as most advertisers run search campaigns in Google Ads. Here’s a breakdown of the different types of bid strategies:

1. Smart Bidding Strategies
2. Automated Bid Strategies
3. Manual Bid Strategies

Smart Bidding Strategies

These are designed to optimise for the actions you want users to take on your site, such as filling out a form or making a phone call. Smart bidding uses automated machine learning and signals from users’ behaviour on the web to make informed bidding decisions.

• Maximize Conversions:
  • Objective: Get the most conversions within your budget.
  • Requirements: Conversion tracking must be set up.
  • Pros: Easy to set up and requires minimal manual adjustments.
  • Cons: Will spend the full budget set for the campaign.

• Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition):
  • Objective: Achieve a specific cost per conversion.
  • Requirements: Historical data on conversion rates.
  • Pros: Controls cost per conversion.
  • Cons: Campaign may not spend budget if the target CPA is too low.

• Maximize Conversion Value:
  • Objective: Maximize the value of conversions.
  • Requirements: Conversion tracking and value tracking (e.g., revenue).
  • Pros: optimises for high-value conversions.
  • Cons: Requires accurate value tracking.

• Target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend):
  • Objective: Achieve a specific return on ad spend.
  • Requirements: Conversion value tracking.
  • Pros: optimises for profit margins.
  • Cons: May not spend full budget if the target ROAS is too high.

• Enhanced CPC (Cost Per Click):
  • Objective: Adjust manual bids to maximize conversions.
  • Requirements: Basic understanding of manual bidding.
  • Pros: Provides some automation while maintaining control.
  • Cons: Less effective than fully automated strategies.

Automated Bid Strategies

These strategies do not focus on conversions and are generally less advisable unless in specific scenarios.

• Maximize Clicks:
  • Objective: Get the most clicks within your budget.
  • Pros: Increases traffic quickly.
  • Cons: Not optimised for conversions.

• Target Impression Share:
  • Objective: Achieve a specific impression share.
  • Pros: Useful for brand protection.
  • Cons: Not optimised for conversions and can be expensive.

Manual Bid Strategies

Manual bidding is mostly obsolete due to the effectiveness of automated strategies.

• Manual CPC:
  • Objective: Control bids at the keyword level.
  • Pros: Full control over bids.
  • Cons: Requires expertise and time-consuming.

Choosing the Right Strategy

For most advertisers, smart bidding strategies are the way to go. They leverage Google’s machine learning to optimise for the actions that matter to your business, ensuring you get the best results possible with minimal manual intervention.

However, automated and manual strategies have their place in certain scenarios. If you’re just starting out and need to generate quick traffic or if you have specific brand protection needs, these might be worth considering.

Need Help?

If you feel your campaigns are not working as effectively as they could, and would like an expert to review your account, then feel free to get in contact with us and we’ll have one of our specialists get in contact with you.

One of the most salient features within the new Google Ads interface, is the introduction of the Optimization Score.

Google has always been experimenting with ways to influence advertisers’ decisions, and how they manage their account, and the Optimization Score is just the latest addition to their repertoire.

The Optimization Score is clearly linked to the various recommendations for improved account management made by Google, but many advertisers still perplexed as to what the score actually indicates, what it affects, if any anything, and whether or not they should pay attention to it.

How The Optimization Score Affects Your Campaigns?

It’s important to note that your Optimization Score has no direct affect on the performance of your campaigns.

Unlike your keywords’ Quality Score, which can affect things such as average CPC, and Ad Rank, the Optimization Score will have no influence on any of your campaign metrics.

This is important to understand, because some advertisers may mistakenly believe that if their account has a low Optimization Score, this indicates that their campaigns are poorly setup, or are performing badly.

Why Google Makes Suggestions

As mentioned above, the Optimization Score is connected to the recommendations made by Google.

These recommendations are made by Google for several reasons:

1. To help improve the performance of advertisers campaigns.
2. To encourage advertisers to implement new features (for example Responsive Search Ads when they were first introduced), so that these features can be tested, and Google can observe the effectiveness of these new features and improve them.
3. To encourage advertisers to expand their campaigns, increase their budgets, and spend more through Google.

Thus, the Optimization Score is there to encourage you to pay attention to the recommendations.

And the recommendations are there to encourage you to make specific changes within your account.

Should You Pay Attention to The Optimization Score?

Some of the recommendations made by Google can be highly beneficial, depending on yours or your client’s objectives.

It is therefore well worth reviewing all of the recommendations made by Google.

If you are managing the account on behalf of a client, it is also worth maintaining a perfect Optimization Score, to help indicate that you are keeping a close eye on the account.

However, as mentioned above, the Optimization Score has no influence over the performance of your campaigns. A high Optimization score does not necessarily indicate that the campaign is performing well, or vice versa.

How to Get a ~100% Optimization Score

The Optimization Score is there to encourage you to pay attention to the recommendations being made by Google.

The score therefore simply indicates how many of recommendations you have either applied, or dismissed.

To get a 100% Optimization, you therefore just need to either apply OR dismiss, all of the recommendations within the account.

If you do not consent to any of the recommendations, then you can simply dismiss all of the recommendations, and achieve a 100% Optimization Score.

All Changes Within Your Account Are Your Responsibility

When reviewing, and or applying the recommendations from Google within your account, it is of extreme importance to understand that all the changes made within your account are your responsibility.

Google will accept no responsibility for the consequences arising from any of the changes made within your account; even those changes that were recommended by Google.

It is essential therefore, that you scrutinise every new keyword, every increase to your budget, and all other adjustments before you apply them within your account.

Need Help With Your Google Ads Account?

If you feel your campaigns are not working as effectively as they could, and would like an expert to review your account, then feel free to get in contact with us and we’ll have one of our specialists get in contact with you.