Smart Bidding: How to Bid Like a Pro in Google Ads
Google’s automated ‘Smart Bidding’ feature is hardly new. It is, however, a widely misused and misunderstood feature that, only now, marketers are starting to grasp and utilise properly.
From Enhanced CPC to Target ROAS, to Target Cost Per Acquisition to maximise conversions, there are a number of automated Smart Bidding strategies to be aware of and understand.
That said, it’s even more lucrative to know how to bid using them. And, that’s where we come in. Want to know how to bid like a pro in Google Ads? Here’s how.
1. Smart Bidding: Be Realistic When Trying to Reduce Your Target CPA
Google’s automated Smart Bidding process only takes into consideration the last 30 days’ worth of data, disregarding the last 7 days in case it’s not consistent or largely reliable. And so, knowing this, it is important that your Taget CPA or ROAS aligns with the data Google has already amassed.
In simple terms, Google learns from what is working and what isn’t so, make sure your data is consistent and reliable, only then can particular Smart Bidding practices have their desired impact. Indeed, don’t push it; get comfortable with your goals and then – and only then – should you slowly increase or decrease your target accordingly.
2. Smart Bidding: Always Stay Goal Orientated
Don’t bother looking at metrics such as your Average Cost Per Click, Impression Share or Average Position and instead, concentrate on looking at the only metric that counts… your goal.
Like some sort of Smart Bidding oracle, Google knows more about the people you’re targeting than them themselves. Moreover, the way Google leverages this data is by displaying your ads when it is most confident that they’re being displayed to the right, most suitable audience.
Because of this, certain metrics can drop or look like they are underperforming. For that reason, when it comes to Smart Bidding, it’s best to stay goal orientated and, to some extent, disregard any other metrics entirely.
3. Smart Bidding: Patience is Key
People underestimate the patience involved in an automated Smart Bidding strategy. Google, whenever you begin a campaign or make a significant campaign change, goes through a ‘learning period.’
It’s important not to end a campaign before Google has even had a chance to learn what it needs to do. Indeed, the platform requires 5-7 days to process how best to use your budget.
It’s also good to lean heavily on your Smart Bidding Strategy Report. In doing so, you can know for certain whether to make a change or not.
4. Smart Bidding: Don’t Overlook High Conversion Delay
In short, Google Ads runs on a default, 30-day conversion window. So, if your user clicks on an ad today, but then doesn’t convert for another 3 weeks, Google claims the conversion.
Indeed, if your conversion cycle is normally quite long, then this may not look very good on a report because some users may not have even converted yet by the time the month is over.
These conversions will inevitably come later, however, if they don’t, that’s when it’s important not to overlook the data.
5. Smart Bidding: Stop Making Continuous Major Changes to Your Campaigns
Every time you make a major change to your campaign, you reset Google’s vitally important learning period and start back from scratch, losing every piece of data it has amassed.
Google Smart Bidding values and rewards patience so, if you’re contemplating making a very major change to your campaign, make sure it’s 100% worth it.