PPC Bid Management Guide: The Best Bidding Tips from 18 PPC Experts
Posted on 6th Jan 2021
PPC bid management is one of the more complicated areas of PPC marketing, so many advertisers choose to automate using either the automated bidding option in Google AdWords or a third-party bid management solution. Both approaches have their upsides and downsides – Google’s automated bidding feature is free, but requires you to give up complete control, and it’s less than transparent. Third-party bid management software is generally more robust, but (obviously) it comes with a price tag, so it may not be feasible for smaller, budget-strapped advertisers.
I was curious how most AdWords advertisers handle the PPC bid management process, so I asked 18 practicing PPC experts three questions:
Do you use automated AdWords bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?
If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?
What's your best PPC bid management tip?
Here’s the all-star lineup:
Aaron Levy
Bethany Bey
Brad Geddes
Chris Kosteki
Crystal Anderson
Elizabeth Marsten
Greg Meyers
Jeff Daniel
Joe Kerschbaum
John Lee
Justin Vanning
Larry Kim
Marko Kvesic
Martin Roettgerding
Pamela Lund
Shawn Livengood
Todd Mintz
Tom Demers
Read on to learn their answers and get some awesome PPC bid management tips from the pros!
Aaron Levy
Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not? If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?
No-ish. SEER uses a third-party tool for reporting and bid management. The tool can set up specific bid rules (either on a keyword or ad group level) and our software sends us alerts whenever a specific keyword or grouping meets the criteria.
I prefer this to the AdWords automated bidding, largely because I have to go in and actively approve (or reject) each bid change. With AdWords automated bidding the changes are ... well, automated! While you can go in and revert after the fact, I like to check before things are posted to make sure the changes are in line with goals.
The main rules I run are checking to make sure top-performing groups are getting the traffic they deserve, and to make sure that we're not paying too much for competitive terms. A few examples:
Rough keywords/groups: If CPA is 2x goal and position is less than 3, reduce bids.
Strong keywords/groups: If conversion rate is 2x average and position is less than 3, increase bids.
Don't bid more than you can afford! More often than not, the top position isn't the most profitable.
Aaron Levy is a PPC associate at SEER Interactive, a Philadelphia-based search agency. He's been involved in digital marketing for the better part of 5 years, and has managed clients as large as Fortune 50 companies and as small as regional plumbers. Follow Aaron Levy.
Bethany Bey
Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?
I do use automated bidding in my accounts. For accounts that with a large amount of conversions, CPA bidding has worked great. I tend to use target instead of max CPA bidding because my accounts all have goal CPAs that we need to meet. I have also had success using optimize for clicks with smaller budget accounts. This type of bidding brought us more clicks within our budget which increased conversions since we had more traffic coming to the site.
If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?
Even though I use automated bidding, I still increase/decrease the target or max amounts just to test the effect. For example, how many conversions I will lose if I decrease target CPA by $1? I usually let these tests run for about 2 weeks.
What's your best PPC bid management tip?
Experiment! Test all different types of automated bidding options. Just because you are focused on conversions, doesn't mean optimize for clicks won't drive sales!
Bethany Bey is a PPC account executive at Hanapin Marketing and blog manager of PPC Hero.
Brad Geddes
Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?
That really depends on the client. We have used third-party bidding software, AdWords CPA bidding, Excel spreadsheets, and helped others build their own system. Some of the big questions we look at are:
Scale. How many keywords, placements, audiences, etc. need to be adjusted.
Conversion volume: How many conversions happen on a daily/monthly basis.
Average sale amount & margins: Is the amount/margin static, within a small range, or all over the place?
Sale/lead flow: One-off sales, sales forces, phone calls, affiliate, downloads, etc. How does a sale actually happen and what steps are taken along the way?
Technical integration: How many systems need to talk to each other to get the data correct?
Technical savvy: Can the client create and maintain their own system?
Long-term goals: What should the account look like in 1-3 years?
With all of this information, then you can examine the cost benefits of where and how the accounts are managed and what technology is required.
I don't think there's a one-solution-fits-all approach. A site making $15/lead with 100 leads a month doesn't need to pay for a huge bid management system. A site doing thousands (or tens of thousands) of sales where the prices and margins are variable needs a robust system. A site that is bidding on multiples of email captures, page views, click-outs, sales, installs, downloads, etc. probably needs their own custom system.
If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?
That depends on volume, volatility, CPC ranges, and workflow. The higher any one of those items are, the more often bids need to be examined. A site spending $100/month does not need daily bidding. An account spending $4mm/month needs to change bids multiple times per week. Some companies watch how busy their sales force is and adjust bids or campaign budgets in real time based upon call volume, phone wait times, and their current capacity, which is a workflow bidding environment.
What's your best PPC bid management tip?
Understand the true value of a customer and work to increase the customer's value post sale. If you can raise the customer value and have a true picture of customer worth, then you can make much better bid decisions. I can't count the times I’ve seen a company say “My competitors must be losing money – there's no way they can afford to pay that much”; and sometimes I'll know the other side (of course, I can't say that) and that they aren't losing money. In reality, they have great lead nurturing, upsell, and customer retention programs that make their customer worth more.
Brad Geddes is the founder of Certified Knowledge, a PPC training and toolset platform. He is the author of Advanced Google AdWords, and an official Google AdWords Seminar Leader. You can follow @bgTheory on Twitter to stay up to date with industry news.
Chris Kosteki
Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords?
Our agency uses a proprietary system that includes bid management software.
Why or why not?
Too many keywords! We have millions of impressions a week across tens of thousands of keywords. Monitoring, analyzing, and acting on all this data at the keyword level is not practical. Instead, we assess performance by predefined segments that let us know where we need to get more aggressive or passive. This allows us to measure not only the ad placement/delivery, but also the subsequent performance downstream (conversions, revenue, leads, etc.). An added benefit is we can gain insight into the bidding history and either spot cycles or trends which provides an important perspective for future decisions.
What's your best PPC bid management tip?
Always take into account the position you are getting when you review bids. It’s not a race to the top, and usually the best performance comes from finding the sweet spot between cost and high-quality traffic volume.
Chris Kostecki has been working in search since 2006, and in marketing since 1997. He created a PPC product for small businesses to supplement a Yellow Page directory product, and worked as a PPC manager in an agency serving e-commerce clients before his current role as in-house Search Analyst at Keurig Inc. Follow Chris on Twitter to keep up with the latest trends in Search Marketing, especially every Tuesday from 12-1 p.m. EST during #PPCChat.
Crystal Anderson
Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?
I do not use AdWords automated bidding. At SEER we use Acquisio for our PPC management platform, which has an extremely robust bid management platform. Their platform allows me to customize complex bid rules for my clients, and run them on a specified schedule in a “suggestion mode.” This allows me to use the tool for “blocking and tackling” versus relying on it to make the bid changes for me. I prefer to use suggestion mode as it allows me to review the bid changes to ensure that there are not any other outside factors going on that may warrant me to deviate from my initially set bid rules. Automation of bids can certainly have strengths, but is something I prefer not to use in most situations, as it has its weaknesses too. If you do use automated bidding, I think it’s always vital to remember that it’s just a tool and the results will only be as good as the rules you set. Evaluate them often to ensure they are still in line with your overall goals.
What's your best PPC bid management tip?
Know your ceiling and floor bids. In various accounts I’ve audited, it’s clear there is no understanding of what the bid strategy should be. There are keywords with bids so low they aren’t showing, and keywords with bids so high that goals are blown by. Tip: Use ACE to test bids and positions if you aren’t sure what those thresholds are for you. ACE can be extremely powerful to hone in on what the optimal bids for your terms are to drive conversions at a profitable rate.
Crystal Anderson spearheads the PPC division at SEER Interactive, a Philadelphia-based Search Agency. She began her PPC career in early 2006 and has managed PPC accounts across multiple platforms, internationally and with monthly budgets from four to six figures. You can follow her on Twitter at @CrystalA.
Elizabeth Marsten
Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?
I use a combination of automated rules bidding and manual bidding. I rarely use tools like Enhanced CPC or CPA. Why: I find that unless the campaign has significant and consistent conversion data, the automated options are more expensive than manual CPC bidding or using an automated rule to control costs.
If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?
Depends on the amount of data/spend, but weekly is at minimum when bids see evaluation and adjustment.
What's your best PPC bid management tip?
For new campaigns, I take the suggested max CPC by the traffic/keyword estimation tools and add another 25-50% to the max CPC for the ad groups. It's better to start high and come down than to try and keep climbing up. Build that Quality Score right out of the gate.
Elizabeth Marsten is the Director of Search Marketing at Portent, Inc., an internet marketing company in Seattle, WA. She oversees the day-to-day workflow of PPC, SEO, Links, Copy and Social at Portent while also managing some PPC clients of her own.
Greg Meyers
Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?
No, I do not use Google's automated bid management. The reason is because I feel that bid management can be more effective when it is done manually. There are too many variables (offline and online) that occur during the life of keyword or keyword group (aka ad group) that could actually be more counter-productive. However, I do feel there is value in automated bid management based making predictions from past performance trends (such as weekends and time of day).
If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?
My best practice for performing bid management is identifying overall trends. These trends consist of Day of the Week, Time of Day, Avg. Position and continually reviewing search query data. If raising or lowering the bid is consistent with the Cost Per Acquisition threshold, then bid management is performed.
What's your best PPC bid management tip?
Do not base bid management rules on Google’s Quality Score Rating. It’s not an accurate representation of a success metric. I have seen countless examples of specific head and long-tail terms that had the highest percentage of conversions with the lowest Quality Score rating, even though the text ads, landing page and keyword groupings were highly relevant.
Greg Meyers is an Internet Marketing Expert who has helped companies both large and small achieve success in Search Engine Marketing through proven strategies and effective implementation. Most recently, he founded AfterClicks Interactive, a pay-per-click marketing firm that provides advertisers, as well as digital agencies, with professional PPC marketing services geared to maximizing their return on investment. AfterClicks leverages all search marketing platforms, technologies and industry best practices backed by proven strategies that are based on the client’s goals and objectives. Greg specializes in Pay-Per-Click Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Landing Page Optimization, and Web Analytics.
Jeff Daniel
Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?
I do not. I use a third-party bid management tool (Marin Software) for our SEM efforts for a couple reasons:
Workflow Efficiency. I, like most search marketers, run campaigns on more platforms than just AdWords. So I use a third party bid management tool to manage all of my campaigns. Sure, I could use the AdWords tool, but then I would be using one tool for that and another tool for the rest and that just doesn’t make sense for us to do.
Objectivity. Letting Google optimize for me seems little like “letting the fox in the hen house.” I’m sure their tool does a great job but I wouldn’t feel comfortable about turning over this much spend control to them.
If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?
Bid strategy is completely dependent on the account goals. For example, if I’m optimizing for conversions and have a CPA goal of $15, bid management tools might automatically slash bids on keywords that are delivering CPAs over $15. Of course, that’s what they’re supposed to do, but what if there are still keywords delivering at $15.50 and I could be missing out on real sales? Automated rules don’t usually account for that. I like to manually monitor situations like this to understand where to raise and lower bids instead of ‘setting it and forgetting it’ with a tool. I also typically look at a basic 20/80 percent rule (although not fixed to those specific numbers) – manually monitor and optimize the top 20% performing keywords delivering on my goal and providing the most volume and let the bid management tool optimize the other 80%, assuming I’m 100% comfortable with the tool itself.
What's your best PPC bid management tip?
If you’re going to use any PPC bid management tool, learn everything you can about it. How does it really work? What are its limitations? What are its advantages? Understand the ins and outs to make sure the tool can and will do what you think it will do to ensure that you won’t end up actually hurting performance. By knowing this information, you can make sure the tool is making the right decisions when you’re not looking.
Jeff Daniel is an account supervisor at Fuor Digital. He oversees digital media strategy, planning and execution across a variety of vehicles and tactics.
Joe Kerschbaum
Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?
Yes! We use a couple different automated bidding options provided by Google. We use a third-party tool as well (Acquisio). Depending on the needs of the campaign, we use Cost-per-Acquisition bidding (CPA) or we use AdWords automated bid rules.
As a rule of thumb, we utilize CPA bidding (Conversion Optimizer) to maintain mature, stable campaigns. For those types of campaigns we can focus our optimization efforts on ad testing, negative keywords, ad group break down, etc. We use the automated bid rules when we want to maintain control, and get more specific with our bid adjustments. In general, we use AdWords automated bid rules to improve a campaign that may have fluctuating performance.
We also use automated bid rules to launch new campaigns as we establish ad position, click-through rates and Quality Scores.
If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?
We utilize as much automation as possible. This way we can focus our optimization brainpower elsewhere within our campaigns. However, there are campaigns that aren’t eligible for automation, such as those with low conversion volume (high value but few conversions). When this is the case, we monitor bids, ad rank, CTR and other metrics at least once per week and make changes as needed.
What's your best PPC bid management tip?
I have two bonus tips.
Monitor your automation closely: You can’t set and forget your bid rules. Monitor the trends closely to make sure the rules that you’ve implemented are actually helping your campaign. You may find that your settings are too aggressive or not aggressive enough.
Adjust automation strategy as needed: Throughout the life of a campaign, there will be varying strategies and goals. At some point you may need to focus on increasing volume (impressions, clicks). At other points you may need to focus on improving ROI (lowering CPA, increasing conversion rate). As these needs shift over time your automation should evolve as well. Remember, bid rules can be paused or adjusted to suit your current needs. Of course, don’t adjust your bids too frequently. But don’t be afraid to adjust in order to focus on your current KPIs.
Joseph Kerschbaum is Vice President of Clix Marketing. Joseph’s writing on the SEM industry appears widely in Website Magazine, Search Engine Watch, and other industry blogs and journals. Joseph is also coauthor of the Wiley/Sybex book PPC Advertising: An Hour a Day.
John Lee
Do you use automated bidding in Google AdWords? Why or why not?
The short answer is yes. Depending on the account in question, I use Conversion Optimizer (CPA bidding) or Automated rules – both of which are AdWords features. I also use Acquisio which provides me with a wide variety of rules for my AdWords campaigns. Bid automation should be considered another tool for PPC advertisers to use. I believe that bid automation can help to streamline your processes and free up time to take care of other important tasks like ad writing and conversion optimization. Another reason why I use automated bidding is that it can help me to reach my KPI targets much more efficiently.
If not, when do you raise and lower keyword bids?
Even though I do use bid automation, I can still answer this question. The truth is, I don't use bid automation in every account or even every campaign. In some instances I've even had clients that were fundamentally opposed to bid automation. So there is still plenty of manual bid optimization in my processes. So, when do you adjust bids? Let the data guide you – just like a bid algorithm! Determine a schedule that is reflective of the performance flow of your account (how many clicks, conversions are generated each day?). Whether it is daily, or weekly, the process is the same. Pull reports and adjust bids according to your KPI targets. The key here is having a schedule, and sticking to that schedule.
Bonus: What's your best bid management tip?
My best bid management tip is simple: be sure that you are basing your changes on data! Many advertisers adjust bids based on a whim or ill conceived notions of how the PPC game is played. Meaningful bid changes are based on the actual performance of your keywords and ad groups. Determining an appropriate "look back period" (how far back you pull data) will allow you to make intelligent decisions on whether to raise or lower your bids or give you the confidence to turn on an automated bid rule.
John Lee is the Client Services Director for Clix Marketing, an SEM agency specializing in PPC. John is an internet marketing jack-of-all-trades with experience in PPC, SEO, and social media marketing. Working in the search marketing industry since 2006, John has perfected his paid search, social media advertising and analytics skills for his role at Clix Marketing. John is also an avid blogger, and has been featured on the Clix Marketing blog, Search Engine Watch, WordStream Blog, PPC Hero, SEO Boy and Website Magazine.
By: Elisa Gabbert