A digital marketing strategy that does not feature paid search is rather like a horse without a carriage or mac without cheese, you get the drift. Adwords automation and machine learning are a game changer for conversions.
I have been promoting businesses online for over a decade and today, even more than ever, search advertising is a powerful instant method of driving clients to your offering. Every company wants to get the most out of their SEO, which is why so many businesses now turn to digital marketing agencies like iTonic to assist them with this. In fact, it’s a lot easier now as Google and Bing help the user even more with machine learning that can self optimize a campaign using the metrics you desire.
Big Money is on Search
The AdEx Benchmark study is the definitive guide to the state of the European digital advertising market, covering 28 markets, and is now in its thirteenth year. In 2018, a total of twenty-one markets saw double-digit year-on-year growth
It shows Search remains the largest online advertising category in terms of revenue with a growth of 12.5 per cent and a market value of €25bn.
Machine learning Adwords
Google Ads automated bidding, Smart Bidding and manual bidding options can be confusing. Google is adding these types of bidding to the mix and in the time I have written this it may have added more!
Automated Bidding with Adwords
To benefit from the power of Adwords there will always be a period of learning. I must say it always feels like I wasting money paying them with my funds so that they can optimise my campaign. It’s 100% worth putting up with the learning period and also having enough patience to let it do its thing. I have seen CPC rates drop dramatically right at the end of the learning period.
Automated bid strategies analyze past data and learn over time, using performance to inform future bids.
What is ROAS in Adwords?
Target ROAS lets you bid based on a target return on ad spend (ROAS). This Google Ads Smart Bidding strategyhelps you get more conversion value or revenue at the target return-on-ad-spend (ROAS) you set. Your bids are automatically optimised at auction time, allowing you to tailor bids for each auction.
Target ROAS is available as either a standard strategy for a single campaign or a portfolio strategy across multiple campaigns. This article explains how Target ROAS bidding works and what its settings are
So what is Smart Bidding with Adwords?
Smart bidding is a bid strategy that uses machine learning to optimise for conversions or conversion value in each and every auction – a feature known as ‘auction-time bidding’. Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximise Conversions and Enhanced CPC (ECPC) are all Smart Bidding strategies. It makes sense that when you use smart bidding you aim to bid to increase conversions and to get the best return on your spend. Letting a machine do this for us is simply brilliant. Conversion tracking, knowing your cost per conversion and what our business can afford are essential.
This video explains brilliantly the smart bidding concept
There are currently four Smart Bidding strategies:
- Enhanced CPC – allows Google to bid higher or lower
- Target CPA – Cost per acquisition
- Target ROAS – as above
- Maximize Conversions
The Future Of Adwords
It seems that Google’s moving away from the keyword and towards more of a people-based targeting method. Google also revealed during the live stream that 15% of searches on Google are unique and have never been searched for before.
