There are various ways in which Google Ads can help you reach your audience and get conversions. To get the most out of your click-through advertising (PPC) campaigns, it's essential that you understand certain Google Ads strategies. Additionally, you must learn the most effective tactics that experts often use to stand out from the competition.
How are Google Ads strategies classified?
Google Ads strategies are planned, personalized approaches to advertising on the Google platform. They involve selecting keywords, creating effective ads, optimizing your budget, and accurately segmenting your target audience. Your goal is to maximize online visibility and return on advertising investment. Each Google Ads bidding strategy that we will present to you is classified into three categories:
Manual Bidding Google Ads Strategy
The manual bidding strategy gives you the ability to adjust your offers in a personalized way for keywords, ad placements, and other targeting options in your Google Ads campaigns. This gives you a absolute control and total flexibility about your offers. However, it is important to keep in mind that they can be complex and require constant monitoring.
Semi-automatic bidding Google Ads strategy
A semi-automatic bidding strategy is a mix between manual and automated methods. It allows you to take advantage of automated advertising platform tools while maintaining a degree of control and manual decision making. An example of this is the Enhanced CPC bidding strategy, which is part of the semi-automatic strategies.
Fully automatic bidding Google Ads strategy
In this, the offer amounts are automatically determined based on how likely your ad is to get clicks or conversions. Automated bidding eliminates the guesswork and helps you meet your advertising performance goals. Unlike CPC bids that you have to adjust manually, you don't need to update bids for specific campaigns, ad groups, or keywords manually.
The 8 main Google Ads strategies
If you want to improve your return on advertising investment with Google Ads, it's great to know all the bidding strategies available. You must carefully select the one that best suits your campaign objectives. Here are the top 8 tactics used by experts:
1) Manual Cost Per Click (CPC) Bidding
A key tactic in PPC advertising is manual CPC bidding. Yourself you determine the maximum amount for your ad groups or keywords. You pay for each click that viewers make on your ad.
CPC Bid Amount = Maximum Cost Per Click
You can set a maximum CPC for your ad groups or set individual bids for specific keywords. If some keywords in your campaign convert more, you can use manual bidding to allocate more daily budget to those keywords.
2) Improved Cost Per Click (ECPC)
It is an automatic Google Ads strategy. It is in charge of adjust your manual bids based on the probability that a click will lead to a conversion. Plus, keep your average cost per click below the cap by optimizing conversions.
You can use ECPC in display ad campaigns even without setting up conversion tracking. However, you need to set up conversion tracking on Search, Shopping, or Hotel campaigns.
The formula to calculate the amount of the ECPC offer is as follows:
ECPC Bid Amount = Maximum Manual Bid * (1 + ECPC Adjustment)
3) Target Cost Per Acquisition (tCPA)
Target CPA bidding is part of smart Google Ads strategies. They help you optimize your offers to achieve conversions. In this strategy, you determine the average cost you want to pay for each conversion.
Imagine you have a digital marketing agency that offers website design services. You've decided that your target cost per acquisition (tCPA) is $100. That is, you are willing to invest up to $100 to acquire a new customer through your website.
To calculate your target CPA bid, you must also take into account your campaign's historical conversion rate, which is 2%. The formula is simple:
Target CPA = Maximum Allowable Cost per Acquisition x Conversion Rate
If we apply the formula, the calculation would be the following:
Target CPA Bid = 100 USD * 0.02 = 2 USD
In this case, you should set your target CPA bid at $2. This means that for every click on your ads, you are willing to spend up to $2 to convert and gain a new customer.
4) Target return on ad spend (tROAS)
Target ROAS is a strategy Smart Bidding. It is usually quite effective, since it uses the “real time offers” to improve your advertising results.
When the Google Ads algorithm detects that a user's search could lead to a valuable conversion, Target ROAS will increase the bid for that search. Otherwise, it will reduce the bid if the algorithm estimates that the search will not result in a high-value conversion.
5) Maximize conversions
It is a form of Automatically adjust your bids to get the maximum number of conversions in your campaign. Google uses historical data and real-time signals to find the best bid for your listing in each auction.
Imagine that you have a budget of $1,000 for your advertising campaign. The algorithm calculates the optimal bid in each auction based on your campaign history and conversion probability. Throughout the campaign, it dynamically makes an adjustment. It is responsible for increasing bids for keywords or locations that have generated the most conversions in the past. Likewise, it decreases others for those with lower conversion rates.
At the end of the campaign, let's say you achieved 50 conversions with a total cost of $800. In this case, the “Maximize Conversions” strategy helped you reach 50 conversions within your $1,000 budget.
6) Maximize conversion value
The “Maximize Conversion Value” bidding strategy seeks increase the total value of conversions in your campaign without exceeding your budget. To calculate it, you simply divide the total conversion value by the cost of the advertising campaign.
For example, if your campaign cost $2,000 and generated $10,000 in conversion value, the formula would be:
Maximize conversion value = $10,000 / $2,000 Maximize conversion value = 5
In this case, your “Maximize conversion value” strategy is generating $5 of conversion value for every dollar invested in the advertising campaign.
7) Maximize clicks
The “Maximize clicks” strategy is an automatic tactic in PPC advertising that aims to get as many clicks as possible on your campaign, all within the established budget.
Imagine that you have a budget of $1,000 for your campaign. The bidding algorithm adjusts bids to increase the chances of getting more clicks. During the campaign, the algorithm may bid higher for keywords, placements, or audiences that have historically had higher click-through rates (CTR) and bid lower for those with lower CTRs.
Let's say at the end of the campaign you used up your entire budget and got 10,000 clicks. The total cost was $800. The cost per click is calculated as follows:
Cost per click = Total campaign cost / Number of clicks Cost per click = $800 / 10,000 Cost per click = $0.08
The main goal is to get the most clicks within the allocated budget, and the bidding algorithm optimizes bids to achieve that goal.
8) Target Impression Share Bid
The target impression share strategy is a popular option in automated bidding that allows you adjust your bids so your ad appears in different locations in Google search results.
This strategy is especially useful in campaigns that include brand terms. For example, let's say you want to achieve 50% impression share in a specific campaign, and your ads generate 10,000 impressions. In reality, the campaign reaches 60% impression share.
To calculate your target impression share, you can use the following formula:
Target Impression Share = (Achieved Impression Share / Total Available Impressions) * 100
So in this case:
Target impression share = (60% / 10,000) * 100 Target impression share = 0.006 * 100 Target impression share = 0.6%
Importance of Google Ads strategies
Google Ads strategies are essential in digital marketing. They allow companies to promote themselves effectively on the most used search platform in the world. Not only do they help increase online visibility. They also allow companies to reach their target audience accurately, optimize advertising budget and measure return on investment in detail. In an increasingly digitalized world, mastery of Google Ads strategies is essential for online business success and competition in today's market.
It is essential that advertisers carefully evaluate their campaign goals, available resources, and budget before choosing appropriate automated bidding strategies. Staying on top of best practices and testing various bidding strategies can lead to optimizing your Google Ads campaigns and setting you up for remarkable success.
