What are the ideal bid strategies in Google ads for search campaigns ?

[mediouza.23]

Hello guys, I'm beginner in Google ads, and I'm willing to launch a search campaigns related to an e-commerce website to get sales.
I watched so many tutorials on YouTube about bid strategies in Google ads, and I become really overwhelmed by the ton of perspectives. However, I managed to conclude that I should start with "maximize clicks" to get enough data (even if it won't be profitable for that period), then switch to something like "target CPA" or "target ROAS" (I don't know why they exclude "maximize conversions" AND "maximize conversions value").
I have please three questions :

1. Why "maximize clicks" strategy has such bad reputation and we should avoid using it or just use for short period ?
2. Is it real that "manual CPC" doesn't work anymore ? Because when I watched some old tutorials of 2019, they used to recommend manual CPC as it's not a good idea to give Google control on your spending, but nowadays, all gurus start to trust Google's automated bid strategies.
3. What's the difference between "maximize conversions" and "maximize conversions value" ?
   I really need the help of experienced marketers.

Thank you

 

[Paul Carmen]

This is way beyond the scope of a UKBF post. Search campaigns should be based on keyword research, buyer intent and well targeted, then constantly optimsed. The choice of keywords, keyword type and negative keywords is key to not waste money.

The AI based bid processes require broad or phrase keyword setup, and will spend and waste a lot of money initially. Well researched and setup, tightly targeted "manual CPCs" that are well optimised regularly, will outperform AI, especially early on.

Google Ads isn't for beginners, unless you start slowly and learn quickly. Plus if you're in ecommerce, price and product proposition is at least as important as the ads setup, as it's so easy for customers to compare online.

 

[Premiersi]

Dependant on your products. Start with Google merchant centre. Get your products listed on there. Make sure to categorise your products then run google ads to that

In my opinion in relation to the question. Whichever method you try. In early ad listing it won't make any difference you have a learning phase to go through. From googles perspective and yours. Adding negative keywords, removing redundant keywords. Optimising ads, ad revelance.

If it was me selling products and from what sounds like a new start eccomernce website (apologies for not checking) but focus on seo, check your website works properly and people can check to basket etc.

Then get Google merchant, then look at ads

If your allowed l, I'll be honest it's 10 years since I've been on this forum. Post a link to your site if you can

 

[fisicx]

Also worth noting you need to optimise the product landing pages for PPC visitors. Doing so will improve conversions and your Google ad score.

It’s also quite likely these gurus you have been watching on YouTube have never run a campaign - their videos only exist to earn money from adverts.

 

[Liam4689]

Hello guys, I'm beginner in Google ads, and I'm willing to launch a search campaigns related to an e-commerce website to get sales.
I watched so many tutorials on YouTube about bid strategies in Google ads, and I become really overwhelmed by the ton of perspectives. However, I managed to conclude that I should start with "maximize clicks" to get enough data (even if it won't be profitable for that period), then switch to something like "target CPA" or "target ROAS" (I don't know why they exclude "maximize conversions" AND "maximize conversions value").
I have please three questions :

1. Why "maximize clicks" strategy has such bad reputation and we should avoid using it or just use for short period ?
2. Is it real that "manual CPC" doesn't work anymore ? Because when I watched some old tutorials of 2019, they used to recommend manual CPC as it's not a good idea to give Google control on your spending, but nowadays, all gurus start to trust Google's automated bid strategies.
3. What's the difference between "maximize conversions" and "maximize conversions value" ?
   I really need the help of experienced marketers.

Thank you

Hi,

The Maximise Clicks strategy aims to get as many clicks as possible and has a bad reputation for low-quality clicks. As you mentioned it could be an unprofitable campaign. This is because the algorithm focuses on clicks rather than conversions.

However before you switch to maximise conversions or maximise ROAS you would want to have some conversion data in the account. The more conversion data in the account the the more data the algorithm has to work with.

I would also like to know which campaign type you are thinking of running? We see that Performance Max campaigns work better than standard text ads and, if you want to use text ad campaigns, that a DSA campaign would work better than a keyword campaign.

 

[joeldfp]

Hi There

I am unsure if you are still looking for advice on this but in case you are:

Firstly - a general point that may help - when you run Google search campaigns your ads will rarely show on 100% of the relevant users searches on queries that match your keywords.

You will likely have a limited budget and therefore Google need to determine which of the users to show your ad to.

The strategy you select can impact which users the impressions go to.

Now - specific responses:

1) Why "maximize clicks" strategy has such bad reputation and we should avoid using it or just use for short period ?

JC - Maximise clicks tends to mean that you get impressions from users that have a high propensity to click. Typically you get a poorer cost per conversion from this strategy once there are enough conversions in the account that Google can reliably optmise based upon using a conversion focused strategy.

2) Is it real that "manual CPC" doesn't work anymore ? Because when I watched some old tutorials of 2019, they used to recommend manual CPC as it's not a good idea to give Google control on your spending, but nowadays, all gurus start to trust Google's automated bid strategies.

JC - To be honest Google's technology has improved a lot in the past 5 years so I tend to put trust in their automated bidding strategies - there are far too many considerations with manual cpc - time of day, location, device etc etc - it's tricky to set manual bids for all keywords that take these factors into account - you have to just make a blanket decision with manual cpc.

3) What's the difference between "maximize conversions" and "maximize conversions value" ?
I really need the help of experienced marketers.

Conversions are just events that happen such as a purchase, conversion value is the monetary value of the conversion.

If a user buys a T shirt for £30 then the difference is:
Conversions = 1
Conversion value = £30

I hope that this helps.

Joel

 

[Kinjal Patel]

In general, performance max campaigns perform a lot better for an e-commerce business compared to any other campaign type including the search. Performance Max campaigns show products with an image and price which is a lot more useful for an e-commerce website customer. So I would suggest you to try them first over the search campaigns.

When you create a new performance search campaign, you can provide audience signals to Google such as search themes, interests. demographics etc. for your products and customers. This allows Google to understand what type of people you want to reach. Once the campaign gathers conversions data then Google uses that to optimise the campaign if you choose automated bid strategy such as maximise conversions.

 

[MarketingQuote]

Google advertising is expensive and the system has changed so much over the years.

Advise would be to use a freelancer or agency to setup and manage your campaigns as there is so much to know.

The system used to be simple back in the day, you could setup and launch a campaign within the same day. Now Google has a 'learn phase' and lots of adjustable.

If you want to try and have a go from watching YouTube tutorials you may find you loose a lot of money quickly.

Talk to an agency about setup and management would be our advice.

 

[fisicx]

Google advertising is expensive and the system has changed so much over the years.

It doesn’t have to be expensive. If set up correctly you can get good returns for little cost. The problem is that people don’t bother to do things properly. The main culprit being poorly configured landing pages.

 

[fantheflames]

Very true. If you are willing to do Google ads, you should also be willing to change your landing pages. It's less expensive to make those changes and saves you money in the long run on ads.