Tailor your Google Ads bidding approach to your specific advertising goals. Whether you focus on clicks, impressions, views, or conversions, the right strategy can significantly impact the success of your campaign.
For example, a campaign that aims for immediate sales might benefit more from conversion-focused bidding, while one that seeks to build brand awareness might prioritize impression-based bidding.
Consider these five basic types of objectives to choose the bidding strategy that best fits:
- For direct actions and conversions : Smart special database Bidding can optimize bids for each auction based on conversion likelihood if you want to drive direct actions on your site, such as purchases or signups.
- Generate website traffic : CPC bidding allows you to pay only for the clicks your ads receive, making it a cost-effective method if your goal is to increase website visits.
- Boost brand awareness : Cost per thousand viewable impressions (vCPM) bidding is beneficial when you want your message to reach a broad target audience, paying for every thousand times your ad is shown.
- Increase video ad views and engagement: Cost per view (CPV) or cost per thousand impressions (CPM) bidding is suitable for video campaigns if you want to increase views or engagement with your ads.
- Product or brand awareness through video ads: CPV is effective for campaigns aimed at increasing interest in your product or brand through video content.
Google Ads bidding strategies explained
Understanding each bidding strategy is vital to achieving your search engine marketing (SEM ) goals, such as generating leads and driving sales.
Let’s explore each Google Ads bidding strategy in detail, with information on when and why to use them and their benefits and limitations.
Manual cost-per-click (CPC) bidding
This strategy is ideal for campaigns that generate web traffic, because it allows precise budget control. Its main goal is to attract traffic while maintaining control over each cost per click. Choose it if you prefer direct control over your campaign costs.
How Manual CPC Bidding Works
- Decide the maximum amount you are willing to pay for a click on your ad
- Manually adjust bids to manage spend and stick to your advertising budget
- Monitor and modify bids frequently to optimize ad performance
For example, a company that sells high-value items, such as electronics, might use Manual CPC to control costs while targeting high-end buyers.
Another example is a local service provider, such as a plumber, who could set up bids for specific services to maximize ROI.
Manual CPC bidding is available for both the Search Network and the Display Network.
Advantages of Manual CPC Bidding
- Respond quickly to market changes or campaign data
- Allows for detailed bid management at the keyword or ad group level
- Adjust bids on high-performing keywords or placements to allocate budget effectively
Limitations of Manual CPC Bidding
- It is very time consuming
- Requires constant monitoring and periodic adjustments
- Potential risk of oversupply or undersupply due to manual handling
Enhanced CPC Bidding (ECPC)
Enhanced CPC bidding (ECPC) is a semi-automated strategy that modifies your manual bids to increase the chances of conversion. It’s ideal if you want to balance manual control with the effectiveness of automation.
How Enhanced CPC Bidding Works
- Adjust your manual bids for each auction based on the likelihood that a click will lead to a conversion.
- Use auction time signals such as browser, location, and time of day to optimize bids
While ECPC aims to keep the average CPC below your set maximum bid, it may temporarily exceed this maximum CPC for high-potential opportunities that may result in conversions.
For example, if you sell cakes and set your maximum CPC to $1, ECPC might increase your bid to $1.70 for an auction that is likely to lead to a store visit. But reduce it to $0.30 for one that is more likely to lead to a website visit without a conversion.
ECPC is available on the Search Network and the Display Network (except for app install campaigns).
Benefits of Enhanced CPC Bidding
- Balancing manual control and automated efficiency
- You can tailor bids for higher-value conversions, prioritizing the most profitable clicks
- Provides more manual control compared to fully automated Smart Bidding strategies, such as target cost per action (tCPA) and target return on ad spend (tROAS)
- It works together with your campaign settings, adjusting bids within the limits of your maximum CPC.
- Does not require setting explicit CPA or ROAS goals
Enhanced CPC Bidding Limitations
- Optimal performance with ECPC depends on implementing conversion tracking to guide bid adjustments.
- ECPC may temporarily increase your average CPC to exceed the maximum CPC bid for opportunities that are deemed likely to result in conversions.
Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) bidding
CPM bidding prioritizes visibility and brand awareness over direct clicks or conversions. This strategy allows you to bid and pay for every thousand impressions your ad receives, making it ideal for campaigns where exposure is the primary goal.
How CPM bidding works
Put it into practice based on these use cases:
- Brand awareness campaigns : To increase brand visibility and recall
- Video ad campaigns : For campaigns aimed at increasing views or engagement with video content
- Google Display Network : For display ads where the focus is on how many times the ad appears
For example, suppose a company launches a new product line.
You can use CPM bidding to increase the likelihood that your promotional ads reach a broad audience across the GDN to promote product visibility and brand awareness.
Another variant of CPM is viewable CPM (vCPM), which allows you to pay only when users can see your ads.
Advantages of CPM bidding
- Expand your ad reach to increase your brand exposure
- Provides control over printing costs, effective for managing budgets in awareness campaigns
Limitations of CPM Tendering
- Prioritizes ad exposure over engagement, which can lead to spending on ads that don’t result in clicks or conversions
Target Cost Per Action (CPA) Bidding
Target CPA bidding helps you optimize conversions while sticking to an average cost per action. This automated bidding strategy is ideal when you have a clear ROI goal and want each conversion to provide similar value to your business.
How Target CPA Bidding Works
- Google Ads sets bids to get as many conversions as possible at your target CPA
- Google Ads uses your campaign’s historical information and real-time contextual signals at auction time
- While some conversions may cost more than your target, others may cost less. Google tries to balance these out to align with your stated target CPA.
Let’s say you set a target CPA of $5. Google Ads will then try to get as many conversions as possible at this average rate, using auction-time adjustments based on a variety of signals to improve bidding effectiveness.
Some conversions may be over $5, but others may be under $5. However, the average will be around $5.
Advantages of Target CPA Bidding
- Adjust bids using real-time signals what pages does a website need? guide to building your websites like device, location, and time of day
- Helps achieve a specific return on investment while maintaining a consistent cost per action
Target CPA Bidding Limitations
- Despite aiming for a constant b2c phone list CPA, the actual CPA may fluctuate due to external influences such as website changes or changes in market competition.
- Target CPA bidding requires historical conversion data which may not be available for new campaigns or those with low conversion volumes.
- To maintain CPA goals, Google Ads may limit ad exposure in more competitive or expensive auctions, potentially reducing overall visibility.