An Updated 4-Step Guide to Google Adwords Smart Bidding

Google Adwords Smart Bidding is a tool that hosts a myriad of benefits for businesses who are able to utilise it to its full potential. If you are one of the many who have yet to fully grasp this powerful and intelligent solution – you might want to keep your eyes peeled.

Let’s now take a closer look on the process of Smart Bidding implementation, through 4 essential steps and key considerations to take note of.

Step 1 – Assessing an Account’s Suitability

There could be multiple reasons as to why users may not currently have a strategy for Smart Bidding on their accounts. This includes:

1. Insufficient Data

Depending on the bidding strategy users are looking to adopt, most tend to follow 1 out of 4 potential bidding strategies that Google has advised. While they are all relevant strategies, users should adopt the best strategy that improves their conversion tracking reliability – provided that there is a sufficient volume of conversions to work with in the first place.

2. Unsegmented Conversions

Organising all your revenue data is essential for incorporating it into Google Ads. Businesses should continuously be identifying and segmenting any new key data that can support Google’s machine learning. Otherwise, automation is pretty much pointless.

3. Unstable Market

Businesses often operate in markets that can be unstable. Because of this, they may choose to avoid using Smart Bidding as it does not necessarily provide the best control in a volatile market. However, this issue can easily be solved by signing up for a Digital Marketing Course in Singapore that will equip you with all the knowledge needed to do it on your own!

Step 2 – Choose The Most Suitable Strategy for Smart Bidding

There are usually 2 Smart Bidding tiers that users can choose from:

• Tier 1: Maximising Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition), Conversions and Target ROAS (Return On Advertising Spend)

These strategies are recognised as the benchmark for Smart Bidding. They enable Google’s smart machine learning to canvass the entirety of a business’ account, and utilise its dedicated auction signals to act accordingly. As compared to keyword-level optimisation, this strategy (a.k.a portfolio-level optimisation) generally performs better and more reliably.

• Tier 2: Maximising Clicks, Target Impression Share Bidding, and Enhanced CPC (Cost Per Click)

These automated functions have more specific roles and benefits; however, they do have their own set of drawbacks.

• They do not utilise the full range of auction signals that is exclusive to Smart Bidding.
• They cannot be implemented at a portfolio-level.

Choosing The Right Strategy and Targets

At the end of the day, the needs of your business will influence the strategy you choose. For example, should you want more conversions using target CPA as your goal, then focusing on the Target CPA strategy will be your priority.

Step 3 – Create a Reliable Strategy for Testing

The right kind of testing can help you to answer two important questions:

• Is Smart Bidding more reliable than the strategy you are currently implementing?
• What are the changes needed to improve my Smart Bidding approach?

An essential thing to note is that any Bid Strategy has to be implemented to the entire control campaign. This is so that the control campaign data can be brought forward later if found successful.

If need be, engaging a Digital Marketing Agency can help you to pull all the elements of your campaign together for best results.

Step 4 – Performance Optimisation

Last but not least, consistent and continuous testing is going to be your key driving strategy – make it a point to always stay up-to-date by frequently testing your strategies. Remember that Smart bidding is highly reliant on data, so the more high-quality data you can provide, the better.

In a nutshell, businesses should constantly seek to refine their conversion tracking skills, update their conversion data and implement the appropriate Smart Bidding strategy to fully maximise its capabilities.