Bid strategies range from manual control to automated rules aimed at a goal, such as maximising conversions or hitting a target cost per acquisition. The right one depends on how much conversion data you have and what you are optimising for.
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Choosing one
Manual bidding gives control when data is thin. Automated bidding needs enough conversion data to learn, and works best when your conversion tracking is accurate.
Common goals
- Maximise clicks to build traffic and data
- Maximise conversions with a budget
- Target CPA for a set cost per conversion
- Target ROAS for a set return on spend
Common mistakes
Automating on bad conversion data
The system will optimise for whatever you tell it counts, including junk leads.
Frequently Asked Questions
Allow its learning period and enough conversions. Changing settings repeatedly resets learning.
Keep reading
- Smart Bidding: Smart Bidding is Google Ads’ set of automated bid strategies that use machine learning to set a bid in each auction toward conversions or conversion value.
- Target CPA: Target CPA is an automated bidding setting that aims for as many conversions as possible at or near the average cost per acquisition you choose.
- Return on Ad Spend: Return on ad spend is revenue attributed to advertising divided by what that advertising cost, usually shown as a ratio or a percentage.
- Cost Per Acquisition: Cost per acquisition is the ad spend needed to produce one conversion, such as a trial, demo request or purchase, for a given campaign or channel.
- Ad copy testing: Ad copy testing compares different headlines, descriptions and offers to learn which message performs best.
- Ad Fatigue: Ad fatigue is the drop in performance when the same audience sees the same ad too often: clicks and conversions fall while costs per result rise.
- Ad Rank: Ad Rank is the value Google Ads calculates in each auction to decide whether your ad shows, in what position, and what you pay per click.
- Brand Bidding: Brand bidding is buying search ads on your own company or product name, mainly to protect that results page from competitors, resellers and affiliates.
