PPC Marketing: An introduction
The ads which appear at the top of your Google search results aren’t there by chance, they’ve appeared to you specifically because their owners have won a bidding match for your attention. This is called ‘pay-per-click marketing’, and it’s informed by a process of PPC bid management.
PPC marketing is effective because at least 63% of all internet users (about 3.2 billion people) have clicked on one of these ads in the past. It can be used in a number of different ways, which you’ll explore in this blog. To ensure your digital marketing goals are met, and your budget stuck to, here is a crash course on PPC bid management from our resident PPC experts.
Contents
- PPC marketing: An introduction
- What is ‘pay-per-click bid management’?
- PPC bid management models: choosing the right one for you
- Model 1: Manual cost-per-click (CPC)
- Model 2: Enhanced cost per click (CPC)
- Model 3: Target cost-per-acquisition (CPA)
- Model 4: Target return on ad spend (ROAS)
- Model 5: Maximize Clicks
- Model 6: Maximise conversions
- Model 7: Maximise conversion value
- Model 8: Target search page location
- Model 9: Target outranking share
- How to maximise ROI on PPC bid management: best practices
- Using pay-per-click bid management tools to support your Google Ads campaigns
- Turning to the experts for help: benefits of working with small PPC agencies
- Conclusion
What is ‘pay-per-click bid management’?
There are a number of different PPC bid management models, tools and agencies out there to choose from, but whilst the nuances of bid management can be quite complex, the crux of it is simple. At its core, pay-per-click bid management is the process of controlling and adjusting which Google search keywords you bid for, and how much you bid for them.
With a carefully constructed bid management plan, you get the most out of each Google Ads campaign budget, thus maximising the return on your investment (ROI).
There are a few key steps and considerations to every successful management structure for PPC advertising.
What is ‘pay-per-click bid management’?
You can’t bid on every keyword in the world, nor would you want to. One of the first steps to managing bids is carefully selecting keywords to bid on, based on the likelihood of winning that bid, and the quality of traffic your ad is likely to attract.
Setting campaign goals
The best place to begin with any pay-per-click ad campaign is to know what you hope to get out of it. Your campaign goals will affect which pay-per-click bidding model you choose, and how much you’ll need to spend on PPC management. An overarching campaign goal will typically be your projected ROI, which you can use to measure the success of each campaign.
Choosing a management model
Having chosen the keywords you’ll be bidding on, you’ll then select the ideal pay-per-click bid management model for your specific campaign goals. We go into Google’s bid management models in much greater detail below.
Measuring and adjusting your PPC bids
Once your PPC journey is underway, the final major step in managing your bids is to track the progress and success of each campaign, before adjusting your bids accordingly (this is the essence of PPC bid management).
PPC bid management models: choosing the right one for you
How do you know what to bid on a keyword and when? How can you tell when a keyword should be abandoned, versus when the bid should be adjusted? And how do you establish an effective budget for each PPC ad campaign? The answers to these questions lie in which management model you choose.
Model 1: Manual cost-per-click (CPC)
You manually set and adjust the maximum amount you’re willing to pay-per-click, per keyword, according to your budget. The most basic model for managing bids on PPC ads, which gives you the most control over your investment, whilst requiring the most from you in terms of time and knowledge.
Best for: Control freaks
Model 2: Enhanced cost-per-click (CPC)
Google automatically adjusts your different campaign bids based on observable trends such as your campaigns’ conversion rates, and their performance in relation to your goals and priorities. Google lowers bids on underperforming campaigns, whilst raising them for high-performing campaigns ones.
A good option for individuals and small businesses without the resources to conduct PPC bid management manually, but who still need to stay well within their budgets.
Best for: Small businesses with low budgets and low conversion numbers
Model 3: Target cost-per-acquisition (CPA)
Ideal when your campaign goal is centred around the value of an acquisition, e.g. gaining a new subscriber to your YouTube channel. With a CPA bid management model, you determine how much you’re willing to pay to make each acquisition, and use this figure to set your PPC bid amount.
Best for: B2B businesses
Model 4: Target return-on-ad-spend (ROAS)
Most often used by eCommerce businesses, the ROAS model of pay-per-click bid management is useful when your campaigns are driven by ROI. Rather than focusing on an acquisition, you choose instead to focus on earning a specific amount of revenue relative to each investment. For example, you set a bid amount according to a goal of making £X per £1 of ad spend.
Best for: eCommerce businesses
Model 5: Maximise Clicks
If the sheer number of clicks is your goal – you want as many prospects as possible to visit your site, increasing traffic and brand awareness – then Google offers another automated PPC bid management model. ‘Maximise Clicks’ works with your budget to find the best bid structure to earn you as many clicks as possible.
Best for: Brand awareness
Model 6: Maximise Conversions
A ‘Maximise Conversions’ management model automatically uses your budget to optimise your keywords bids for conversions. A ‘conversion’ is when a prospect not only clicks on your ad, but engages with what lies beyond – for example: purchasing a product, signing up to an email newsletter, or using a service.
Best for: Businesses with a set budget and strong conversion numbers
Model 7: Maximise Conversion Value
Rather than automatically using your budget to achieve as many conversions as possible, regardless of value, with this model of bid management Google (or a PPC agency) will optimise your bidding strategy to achieve higher value conversions. This could include higher bidding in competitive auctions for keywords with proven track-records of high conversion value.
Model 8: Target Search Page Location
The ‘Target Search Page Location’ bid management model is useful for bricks-and-mortar businesses which want to direct local traffic to their website, and then onto their physical shop/office. You tell Google in which location(s) you want your ads to rank, and it uses your budget to automatically optimise your bids for that purpose.
Best for: Brick-and-mortar businesses
Model 9: Target Outranking Share
The final model for pay-per-click management we’ll mention is ‘Target Outranking Share.’ For highly-competitive industries in which PPC marketing could quickly drain your funds, this model allows you to set how often, and when, you wish to bid to outrank your competitors.
Best for: Competitive types
How to maximise ROI on PPC bid management: best practices
Whether you choose to set your PPC bids manually, let Google automate your bids, or turn to a trustworthy PPC agency to manage your bidding for you, these are the best practices for maximising ROI.
Use keyword research tools and select long-tail keywords
One of the most important parts of any successful management strategy for pay-per-click bidding is to find the right keywords to help you achieve your marketing goals. Keyword research can be extremely time-consuming, but not if you use a keyword research tool like the free one provided by Google Ads.
Tools like these help you find the most relevant and popular searches made by prospects in your particular niche, industry, location. The shorter and more popular the term (e.g. ‘record stores’), the higher the average CPC. The longer and more specific a keyword (those with 4+ words are called ‘long-tail keywords’), the lower the CPC and, typically, the higher the conversation and click-through rate. For smaller businesses and brands, long-tail keywords can often be the most cost-effective bidding option when it comes to PPC management.
Research average CPC and bid amounts
Before you set your maximum PPC bid, you’ve got to know what the average cost of a click (CPC) for each keyword is, as well as the average bid amount from your competitors. For your ad to rank and to optimise your ROI on it, you need to find that sweet spot between bidding too low and bidding too high.
Focus on optimising your Google Ads account’s quality score
There are several elements to the formula Google uses to determine how much you’ll pay each time someone clicks on your ad, but the most important is ‘Quality Score.’ This is the score Google attributes to the page behind your ad, according to its relevance to the keyword search, its degree of accuracy and expertise, and how well it’s developed for SEO (think: page load speed, formatting, metadata, UX and UI). The higher your Google Quality Score, the less you’ll usually have to bid to rank highly.
Allocate your budget wisely
Regardless of the size of your budget – be it ‘worker bee’ or ‘queen bee’ sized – it’s imperative that you know how to spend it. Budgeting for PPC is all about evaluating, and regularly re-evaluating, the worth of each individual ad campaign. Doing so, you can increase your PPC bids on high-performing campaigns, and decrease them on underperforming ones.
Using pay-per-click bid management tools to support your Google Ads campaigns
There is a wide and varied selection of PPC bid management tools you can choose to use to help you market effectively. The best pay-per-click bid management software uses AI to determine the best keywords to bid on to meet your campaign goals, and how much to bid on each, before automatically setting and adjusting your bids for you. Such tools can be an effective, yet often costly, part of an in-house PPC management team for your business.
Turning to the experts for help: benefits of working with small PPC agencies
Small, dedicated digital marketing agencies, with expertise in PPC management, can completely negate the stress and hassle of managing your pay-per-click campaigns manually. What’s more, they are run by real people, with whom you can work closely to ensure your Google Ads budget is kept under control and used as efficiently and effectively as possible, producing results it would be hard to match elsewhere. WebHummel is one such agency capable of managing every aspect of PPC marketing, including bidding, for you.
Conclusion
PPC bid management is all about getting the most out of your time, effort, and finances. Google Ads campaigns are a fundamental part of digital marketing in 2023, and will be for many years to come.
Knowing how to make your pay-per-click bids work for you is key to maximising the return on your investments and achieving your campaign goals.
To optimise your pay-per-click bid management strategy, without any of the stress or hours spent getting to grips with the Google algorithm, contact Google Partner and PPC specialist beefound.agency, today.
