Google Ads helps marketing brands find new customers, generate revenue, and expand their reach, however, managing these ad campaigns can be pretty hectic labor, especially when your time is spent making the same campaign modifications on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
Google Ads automation comes to the rescue, it is one of the biggest marketing tools available to businesses today.
By leveraging this tool, businesses can save time and money and even consider more ways to boost conversions.
This article will help you understand why businesses should use Google ads automation and its tools and how it can help them with their goals.
What is Google Ads Automation?
Google Ads automation is an advertising system that allows marketing brands to manage their ads, campaigns, and ad spending in one place.
It’s a cloud-based solution that utilizes machine learning and artificial intelligence to help brands optimize how their ads are displayed and how much they spend on those ads.
Ads automation offers guidance on what to bid, where to bid, and when to bid based on historical data.
Google Ads automation aims to help businesses make more informed decisions about their advertising campaign so they can spend their money more judiciously.
What to Bid?
If you are just starting in Google Ads automation, you may be lost on exactly what to bid but do not worry, I had you in mind while creating this guide, so I will see you through it all.
To start, you will want to go with a budget and bid amount that you are comfortable with.
Before you take the first step
If you are new to Google Ads bidding, study ad bidding basics. It helps to understand what the goals of your campaign are and which networks work better to help you reach your goals.
Select your first bids
First things first, right? There’s no single recommended one fits all bid amount that works perfectly for every business. The right bid for your business will depend on:
#1. Your campaign type
#2. The cost of your keywords
#3. The success of your keywords
Most people starting in Google Ads use cost-per-click bidding to pay for each click on their ads.
With this option, you can set a maximum cost-per-click bid, that’s the highest amount that you are willing to pay for a click on your ad.
Set your bid by first considering how much an ad click is worth to you. If you are unsure what bid to begin with, try setting a maximum CPC bid of US$1.
When you set a maximum CPC bid in a new campaign, it’s tested on the keywords you choose for your ad group. You can change this ad group’s default bid at any time.
If specific keywords are more relevant to your business than others, you can decide to set different bids for them to increase your chances of having your ad appear when users search with those keywords.
Core Benefit of Google Ads Automated Bidding?
Automated bidding puts the heavy lifting and guesswork out of setting bids to hit your performance goals.
Unlike Manual CPC bidding, there’s no need to hand-mechanically update bids for specific ad groups or keywords.
Google Ads automatically sets bids for your ads based on that ad’s likelihood to result in a click or conversion that helps you achieve a specific goal for your campaign.
Different types of automated bidding strategies can help you improve clicks, visibility, and conversions.
Automated bid strategies learn as they go, utilizing information about a bid’s performance to inform subsequent bids.
How Smart Bidding Improves Automated Bidding for Search campaigns?
Smart bidding? I like to guess what you are about this, so let me explain what it is so that we would continue to move together.
Smart Bidding refers to bid strategies that leverage machine learning to optimize for conversions or conversion value in each auction, a feature known as auction-time bidding.
Put differently, Smart Bidding is simply a bidding category that includes just conversion-based strategies.
So, smart Bidding leverages the benefits of goal-oriented automated bidding and applies them to conversions (clicks converted to purchases) and conversion values.
It factors in a wide range of auction-time indicators that include device, location, time of day, language, remarketing list, and operating system to capture the unique context of every search.
Smart Bidding utilizes “auction-time bidding”, which sets a bid for every query.
Types of Automated Bid Strategies and How to Use Them?
#1. Maximize clicks
#a. Goal: Increase website visits
#b. Available: In Single campaigns or across multiple campaigns, keywords, and ad groups
#c. Description: The Maximize Clicks strategy aims to boost the number of visitors to your website.
The strategy automatically sets bids to enable you to maximize clicks within your set budget. it is available as a standard strategy in a single campaign or a portfolio bid strategy across several campaigns, ad groups, and keywords.
#d. Best Used: When you have a solid conversion funnel and you want to send as many visitors to your site as possible.
#2. Target search page location
#1a. Goal: To boost visibility on the first page of Google search results page or display in one of the top positions
Available: In campaigns
Description: Target Search Page Location automatically sets bids to help improve the chance that your ads show on the first page of Google search or in one of the strategic ad positions.
It is just available as a portfolio bid strategy on the Search Network.
Best Used: When you want to rank as one of the strategic positions in a Google search.
#3. Target outranking share
#a. Goal: To boost visibility over other websites
Available: In campaigns
Description: With Target Outranking Share, you can choose another advertiser’s domain that you wish to outrank in an ad position and how often you would like to outrank it.
Google will then automatically set your search bids to help hit that objective. Target Outranking Share is only available as a portfolio bid strategy just as a target page location.
Best Used: When you want to outrank a specific competitor in your industry.
#4. Target cost-per-acquisition (CPA)
#1. Goal: Earn more conversions with your target CPA
#b. Available: In campaigns and ad groups
#c. Description: Target CPA enables more control over your automated bidding. With this strategy, Google automatically sets Search or Display bids to enable you to receive as many conversions as possible at your set target cost-per-acquisition (CPA).
#d. Best Used: When You have established a CPA that you know you can spend to get a customer while still maintaining a profit.
#5. Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC)
#a. Goal: To boost conversions while staying in full control of your keyword bids
#b. Available: In campaigns, keywords, and ad groups
#c. Description: With ECPC, Google automatically modifies your manual bids to allow you to generate more conversions while trying to achieve the same cost-per-conversion.
ECPC is available as an alternative feature when applying Manual CPC bidding or as a portfolio bid strategy.
#d. Best Used: When you are applying a manual bidding strategy but still want to make use of automated bidding.
#6. Target return on ad spend (ROAS)
#a. Goal: Meet a target return on ad spend when you value each conversion differently
Available: In campaigns, ad groups, and keywords
#c. Description: Target ROAS automatically sets your bids to enable you to receive as much conversion value as possible at your fixed ROAS (the average value you earn in turn for every dollar you spend on ads).
Some conversions may have a higher or bottom return than your target. Target ROAS is obtainable as a portfolio bid strategy and a standard strategy for independent campaigns.
Best Used: When you want to concentrate efforts on driving the highest value of conversions against trying to receive the highest number of conversions.
#7. Maximize conversions
#a. Goal: Earn more conversions while spending your budget
#b. Available: In campaigns
#c. Description: This strategy automatically sets bids to enable you to earn the most conversions for your campaigns while spending your whole budget.
With this strategy, Google optimizes for a greater volume of conversions. Maximize Conversions is accessible as a standard strategy for individual campaigns, however, not as a portfolio bid strategy.
#d. Best Used: When you have a huge budget and want to automate your ads to drive massive conversions.
Benefits of Google Ads Automation
#1. Offers Smart Bidding
This feature allows businesses to bid on keywords with different bids based on the number of impressions they have been shown. For instance, if a keyword has been shown 1,000 times, but only 200 times during the last month, then it would be considered less competitive, and businesses could lower their bid by 25%.
#2. Eliminates Guesswork
When running ad campaigns manually, businesses will have to find out what works best for them and then run those campaigns in a way that works best for a specific audience.
They can’t do this without trial and error, but with an automated platform, all this work can be done in one big simple swoop and just one place.
#3. Boost Click Rate
The primary benefit of an automation platform is that it improves the ad click rate. When businesses automate their campaigns, those interested in their products will click on their ads and be directed to their site.
#4. Set And Forget
One of the biggest benefits of an automation platform is that brands can set and forget. They don’t have to monitor their ads regularly like they have cake in the oven, so they can concentrate on other things.
This is especially helpful if they are running campaigns on multiple keywords or trying to attract extra traffic from one keyword.
Last word of Advise When Using Google Ads Automated Bidding
Note that automated bidding requires a lot of testing and fine-tuning, which can be time-consuming and costly. So it’s crucial to ensure that the ad copy and landing page are optimized for the ads being bid on.
Conclusion
Google Ads is a great way to advertise a brand`s efficiency. Google has automated much of the ad system, making it relatively easy for a new advertiser to be up and running in very little time compared to other marketing platforms.
However, without a basic understanding of how it works, users will likely sink money on ineffective ads. This article was written to enlighten businesses on how the automated platform performs and how Google Ads automation can be optimized.
