Automated Bidding Strategies 101. Is it the right strategy for you?

Choosing the right bidding strategy can make or break your Google Ads campaign. While automated bidding promises efficiency and improved results, it's not a set-it-and-forget-it solution. Here's what home services businesses need to know about leveraging automation without losing control of their advertising spend.

The Role of PPC in Home Services Marketing

For home services businesses like yours, Google Ads pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns are an integral part of a successful digital marketing strategy—an effective way to drive targeted traffic and leads to your website. With PPC, advertisers create ads and bid on specific keywords. Then, when users search for those keywords, the ads are displayed alongside the search results. You only pay if someone clicks on your ad. As search engine results pages (SERPs) have evolved, Google has developed and introduced various bidding strategies, each with its own pros and cons. The success of each approach depends on several factors, including an individual business's goals and paid search strategy. Keyword bidding is constantly evolving, which is why it's essential to work with the right team. You need advocates who not only understand your business but also the technical aspects of keyword bidding.

Automated vs. Manual Bidding Strategies

What is Automated Bidding?

One such strategy is automated bidding, a feature available on Google Ads that allows you to set bids based on your goals, such as increasing clicks, improving visibility, and maximizing conversions, as opposed to manual bidding, where you put the maximum bid amount based on your entire ad group, individual keywords, and/or placements. With manual bidding, you have more control, but it also takes more time and effort to create, adjust, and maintain your bidding strategy.

Popular Automated Bidding Options

When you use an automated bidding strategy, Google's algorithm automatically finds an optimal bid for your ads based on your budget and targets. Different automated bidding strategies can help you improve ad performance, increase website traffic, or maximize conversions (leads). Two of the most popular options are Target CPA and Maximize Conversions. Target CPA (cost per action) uses historical data to set bids for each auction, aiming to hit a target cost per acquisition. At the same time, Maximize Conversions focuses on maximizing conversions within a daily budget. It's important to note that capturing the maximum number of leads can significantly increase your CPL, which isn't always the best option.

Benefits of Automated Bidding

Automated bidding offers many advantages: it can drive lead flow, help keep cost-per-lead (CPL) down, and free up time and energy that would otherwise be spent on manual bid adjustments. It can improve the overall efficiency of ad campaigns and increase ROI. Putting bidding in Google's hands means access to its algorithm and insights that outsiders lack; in our experience, we've seen results indicating that Google favors companies that use its automated bidding strategies. If your company has the budget, automatic bidding can be a highly effective strategy.

Potential Drawbacks to Consider

However, when implementing a PPC strategy that includes automated bidding, there are a few caveats to consider as well. Ultimately, it takes power out of your hands and gives it to Google. Automated bidding can reduce control over ad campaigns and transparency in the bidding process. Additionally, for those with smaller ad budgets, automatic bidding might not be the best strategy. Budget constraints can limit the system's ability to make necessary real-time adjustments to compete effectively in bidding auctions.

The Coalmarch Approach: A Balanced Strategy

Here at Coalmarch, we've found that automated bidding works best when it's one segment of an overall strategy. In other words, you can't simply hand over the bidding process to Google and hope for the best; automated bidding alone doesn't guarantee success. Other key factors, including ad quality, landing page optimization, campaign structure, and more, play crucial roles in achieving peak performance.

With all of that in mind, when we craft PPC strategies for our clients, automated bidding plays a small but crucial part. Our team reviews goals, budget, competitive landscape, and other factors to develop a customized bidding strategy tailored to each client's needs. Understanding how to measure marketing ROI is critical to determining if your bidding strategy is working. We also continuously monitor and evaluate, adjusting campaigns as needed. Using automated bidding frees up our team's time to invest in each client's account and focus on moving the needle in other ways.

The Future of Automated Bidding

Overall, automated bidding can be a valuable tool for streamlining your PPC campaign, depending on your goals. It offers many opportunities to test and optimize an effective bid strategy to drive more conversions and improve ROI. As the digital landscape continues to evolve and rely more on automated learning systems, automated bidding strategies will become more prevalent, making it increasingly necessary to partner with a team like Coalmarch. This team will design the right bidding strategy for your company's specific goals.

Ready to learn more? Let's talk about how Coalmarch can help your company grow with our data-driven marketing platform. Schedule a consultation today!