AdWords 101: A Bidding Guide for Ecommerce Merchants!

Adwords putting in a bid represents probably the most key elements that determines the way you appear in the search engines along with other search engines like google. With Google, your bid comprises among the two variables that induce your Ad Rank (another is quality score). Ad Rank determines if where you be visible on looking search engines when customers look for your product or service. The way you bid will directly impact the way you display in the search engine results and it is a flexible it is simple to adjust.

Deciding How to start

Deciding things to set your bids to could be tricky because the quantity of competition, prices, and conversions change from industry to industry. Tools exists for predicting the quantity you will probably pay according to current search competition, however, you won’t truly know what sort of traffic and purchasers your bids yield before you begin running your campaign.

A great beginning point would be to determine what you’d ideally prefer to pay to develop a purchase quite simply, your cost per acquisition. For instance, in case your goal would be to spend $25 per purchase and estimate that 3% of searchers clicking your ad will purchase, you would then set your bids to $.75 per click.

The formula with this is: CPA Goal * Rate Of Conversion = Max. CPC bid.

If starting with that bid as well as your estimates are correct, you’ll spend ~$75 for 100 clicks and generate 3 sales, each purchase squandering your typically ~$25. These figures might not be exact since your initial set bid is really a maximum, so you’ll frequently pay less per click. For those who have no data to reference, be reasonable together with your believed rate of conversion. For reference, the typical rate of conversion for ecommerce sites is 2-3%.

Setting Your Bids

In The Search Engines AdWords, you are able to set your bids in the ad group and keyword level (or whichever kind of targeting you will be using besides keywords).

To create the bids in the ad group level, enter your bid underneath the Default Max CPC column. CPC means cost-per-click, then when you place this value you’re indicating the most you’re prepared to pay whenever a searcher clicks your ad. Other means of putting in a bid exist aside from the cost-per-click basis which we explain later. Max CPC provides you with complete control to create bids and make certain you aren’t spending over a specific amount.

Should you set your bids in the ad group level, all the keywords inside your ad groups will default to that particular bid. However, if you would like specific keywords to possess different bids than you place the ad group, you are able to modifying the Max CPC in the keyword level.

As one example of, let’s if you have an advertisement group having a bid of $2.00 and 100 keywords. Should you set 10 of individuals keywords’ bids to $1.00, individuals 10 will override the ad group bid and maximize at $1.00 as the remaining 90 will keep to the $2.00 bid. Generally in AdWords should you set a flexible in a lower level, it’ll override the settings inherited from the greater level. For instance, ad groups inherit settings in the campaign level but additionally override them should they have their very own specified set.

First Page Bid Estimates

After modifying your bids or launching a brand new campaign, you’ll frequently watch a warning for several keywords which are “Below first page bid”. You will see a precise bid amount listed, which Google thinks is required for your keyword to look on page one . This warning can look within the keyword’s status column. We advise taking these warnings having a touch of suspicion. We view many keywords underneath the estimate appear typically within the first ad position, on page one, and made an appearance for more than 50% of the qualified impressions.

We advise searching at the data before choosing to lift up your bids to satisfy the estimate. When the keyword receives almost impressions daily, shows a minimal average position (greater than 1 to 4), or perhaps a low search impression share (posts > competitive metrics > search impr. share), it’s most likely worth raising the bid to own keyword an opportunity to run.

With new campaigns you’ll frequently observe that page one bid estimate could be much greater than appears rational, also it fluctuates often. A brand new campaign does not have built-up data for click-through rates along with other metrics to exhibit Google that you’re a great advertiser that just displays relevant ads. Which means that the estimates for the first launch could be greater than you will be having to pay lower the street. Still, you’ll frequently need to meet these estimates to begin showing to begin with! When your data proves that you’re a trustworthy advertiser with engaging ads, you will be rewarded with greater quality scores (another element of Ad Rank) which will ultimately lower the bid estimate as well as your actual cost-per-click. Of course, treat these estimates carefully and believe in data.

Raising and Lowering Bids

When choosing to lower or raise AdWords bids, it’s vital that you think about your conversion data first. To be able to have conversion data, you must have conversion tracking.

You can begin this setup process in AdWords by navigating to Tools > Conversions > Conversion. Code generated here will continue the transaction finished page. When you set that up, you can include posts for metrics like total conversion value and priceOrtransformed click.

When searching at the keyword or ad group data, if you see places that with an inexpensive per acquisition that produce a healthy conversion value, it’s most likely worth raising your bids to capture a lot more of that valuable traffic. However, if you see one of these simple productive areas includes a search impression share of above 90-95% along with a high average position (1-2), it might be possible to reduce your bids and keep exactly the same quality and degree of traffic. You could check just how much qualified traffic you’re receiving by examining the search impression share. It’ll show the number of qualified impressions you’re receiving and when you lost impressions as a result of low Ad Rank or out of your budget drained in the morning.

Like we pointed out, if you see a keyword having a high average position ( around 1-2) and you’re turning up for pretty much all of your qualified impressions, you’re most likely reaching the max of the items your bids you can get plus they may come lower.

If you see a keyword or ad group that converts but achieves this while over spending, (ex: the particular CPA is $75 per purchase when you have to be nearer to $25 per purchase) it’s time for you to start decreasing the bids. If you are spending a lot of profit some areas and never establishing a return, it might be also worth pausing the ads instead of attempting to make them lucrative. For example, for those who have a keyword with 500 clicks costing $500 without any sales to exhibit for this, you’d be best pausing that keyword and focusing your financial allowance on more lucrative areas.

Similarly, for those who have an advertisement group or keyword that’s near to breaking even and also you shouldn’t enhance the bids any longer, you could attempt to enhance the rate of conversion by writing better ads or using different squeeze pages.

Mobile Bid Adjustment

An important putting in a bid component that frequently will get overlooked may be the mobile bid adjustment. You’ll find this column inside your campaign’s settings under devices. The column alongside cellular devices “Bid adj.” might not look editable, however, you can edit for cellular devices.

Set a portion to improveOrreduce your bids for mobile searchers. For instance, if all of your bids are positioned at $1.00, as well as your mobile bid adjustment sits at -50%, you’ll bid a max of $.50 for mobile searchers along with a max of $1.00 for searchers on tablets and computers.

Mobile bid adjustment is essential since the rate of conversion for cellular devices and computers/tablets differs greatly. For those who have a website it is not mobile-friendly, you can convert 3% of the desktop clicks and .10% of the mobile clicks. With this particular example you’d need to be expending budget on desktop clicks and cutting your mobile bid adjustment to remove mobile clicks entirely (-100%), or lower it for an amount where one can still meet CPA goals.

On the other hand, if you would like searchers to you if you notice your ads, it might be worth raising your mobile bid adjustment to pursue individuals searchers. An alert: generally mobile clicks cost under desktop clicks, so that you can be receiving lots of mobile traffic having a negative mobile adjustment.

Other Putting in a bid Strategies

Other putting in a bid strategies exist besides by hand setting maximum CPC bids. You are able to let AdWords set your bids to assist maximize clicks inside a target budget, using the control from your hands.

Inside the Google Display Network you should use CPM bids, which bid for impressions instead of clicks. Two strategies exist you can use within the settings with Conversion Optimizer enabled (a website needs a minimum of 15 conversions per month to make use of).

You are able to enable enhanced CPC, which utilizes your and Google’s data to instantly raise minimizing your bids with respect to the likelihood that the given click will convert. Or focus bids according to your target CPA. With this particular strategy, you’ll set CPA goals and AdWords will bid using the aim of meeting individuals goals. With these automated putting in a bid strategies, it will save you time, although not always money because you will haven’t much control of the putting in a bid.

Closing Words

Remember: always believe in data when deciding how and where to create your bids. Conversions will differ across keywords and ad groups, so adjust your bids to mirror individuals variations. Lift up your bids when there’s possibility of elevated profit, and reduce bids when you are overspending for that given budget or generating low returns.

When deciding how to change your bids, reserach your conversion data, search impression share average position along with other key metrics. If the area doesn’t appear salvageable since the rate of conversion is not high enough and also the bids you’re having to pay are extremely high, it might be worthwhile to pause that area and check out something totally new. Of course, Volusion’s Marketing Services team is here now to assist so we have numerous affordable choices to strengthen your business obtain a traffic increase in 2012.

Best of luck and happy putting in a bid!

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