Pay-Per-Click (PPC) bidding strategies are vital to successful online marketing campaigns. By leveraging the right approach, you can ensure your campaigns meet their goals while optimizing your budget to maximize ROI. However, knowing which is right for you can take a lot of time and effort with so many different PPC bid strategies available.
In this blog post, we’ll cover all the basic types of PPC bidding strategies and how they are used in Google Ads marketing campaigns.
Strategic PPC bidding determines how much an advertiser pays for each click on their ad. Advertisers bid on the keywords related to their product, service, or brand. The amount they bid determines where their ad placement will be and how much they will pay for each click. Each bidding strategy has a different aim, from maximizing impressions to increasing conversions. Knowing which PPC bidding strategy to use will help you optimize your budget, reach your target audience, and maximize returns.
These are the most common PPC bidding strategies used by advertisers:
- Cost per click (CPC) bidding: Advertisers pay a predetermined amount each time a user clicks on their ad.
- Cost per impression (CPM) bidding: Advertisers pay a set rate for every 1,000 impressions (views) of their ad.
- Cost per acquisition (CPA) bidding: Advertisers pay a predetermined amount for reaching a conversion goal, such as sign-ups or sales.
- Target CPA bidding: Automatically adjusts bids to reach your desired cost-per-acquisition target.
- Enhanced cost per click (ECPC) bidding: Automatically adjusts bids to utilize the budget more effectively.
- Maximize Clicks bidding: Automatically sets bids to get the most clicks within your budget.
- Conversion Optimizer bidding (ROAS): Automatically sets bids to suit different objectives such as maximizing conversions or revenue.
Cost-per-click (CPC) bidding is a popular form of advertising in which an advertiser pays each time a user clicks on their ad. It’s the most common form of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and real estate investors can use it to maximize their ad campaign performance.
The most important part of managing CPC PPC campaigns for real estate investors is setting the maximum bid for their ads. This bid represents the maximum amount they are willing to pay for each click on their ad. The advertiser also needs to determine who their ideal customers are so they can set a realistic bid according to the competition and keyword demand.
For example, a real estate investor wants to advertise an investment property they want to sell. They also need to consider how competitive their keywords are and how much competition there is for those keywords. Based on this information, they can set an appropriate maximum bid to ensure their ad reaches the targeted audience without breaking their budget.
Cost per impression (CPM) bidding is a form of advertising that charges a fixed rate for every 1,000 impressions an ad receives. Real estate investors can use it to reach a broad audience quickly and efficiently.
The advertiser can set their maximum bid according to the competition and keyword demand and the target audience they want to reach. For example, a real estate investor wants to reach distressed home sellers in a specific city. They might set a CPM bid targeting people living in the area so they can get maximum exposure for their message.
In addition to setting the maximum bid, the advertiser also needs to determine how far they are willing to go with their budget and when they want the ads to begin and end running. This will ensure they only spend what they’re prepared to on the campaign while still getting enough impressions to make it successful.
CPA bidding is a form of advertising cost disciplining, where you’re only paying for your target outcomes. It’s most appropriate for campaigns with quantifiable objectives, such as lead generation or sales.
Here’s an example of how it can work for a Cash Home Buyer campaign:
You decide to use CPA bidding, setting your target CPA to $15,000. The ad exchange will then use this goal when allocating ads, matching clicks and impressions to those likely to reach your desired conversion rate at the lowest possible cost.
At the same time, you can also adjust other factors, such as increasing bids when the predicted likelihood of hitting your target CPA is higher.
To get the most ROI from your ad spend, monitoring performance regularly and optimizing for CPA using data-driven insights is essential. You can track impressions, clicks, and conversions against your target to ensure you achieve the best possible ROI. With continual optimization, you can reduce waste from unsuitable clicks or low-performing placements to maximize your profit.
- With PPC, Target CPA bidding strategies can be an effective way to reach your desired CPA goals. It will allow you to set goals based on the value of the leads you want to get from this campaign. For example, a “we buy houses” company would start by setting up a campaign with the objective of Lead Generation and choosing a Target CPA bidding strategy. You can also set several bids for different traffic sources and use various strategies, such as assessing your key performance indicators (KPIs) and using historical data to make educated assumptions about what kind of bids are likely to make you reach your target CPA goal.
- Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC) bidding is an automated bidding strategy that helps advertisers optimize their campaigns to increase efficiency while maximizing return on investment. This bidding strategy adjusts bids depending on the estimated likelihood of a user converting. It works best when advertisers have a limited budget and want to maximize conversions on the desired action (e.g., “Buy Now”). For example, let’s take the case of a cash home-buying company. The advertiser has set a bid cap of $35 and wants to maximize conversions from their campaigns. With ECPC bidding, the advertiser can expect to see a higher return on investment because the system will lower bids on impressions that are unlikely to convert and increase bids on ones more promising. For ECPC bidding to be affordable, monitoring campaign performance and adjusting bid caps and other settings is essential.
- The Maximize Clicks technique is a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising bidding strategy. It’s designed to help you get as many clicks as possible from your ads within your budget. You can adjust your bidding strategy to control costs and ensure profitable campaigns. For example, if you are trying to generate leads from homeowners looking to sell for cash, you would set up your PPC campaign to use the Maximize Clicks strategy. This would allow your ads to be shown to people who are more likely to click on them, which converts them into a lead.
- Conversion Optimization Bidding, or ROAS, is a bidding strategy for Google Ads campaigns that use a target return on ad spend (ROAS) to bid for conversions. The system adjusts this bid automatically based on factors such as device, user location, and time of day. With ROAS bidding, you can set a target return on your ad spend, so when users are more likely to convert, your bids increase, and when they’re less likely to convert, your bids drop. For example, you could set a target ROAS of 3x. This means Google Ads will adjust your bid, so you receive $3 in revenue for every $1 you spend on ads.
Manual CPC bidding is a great way to control your Bing Ads or AdWords campaigns. It allows you to set the maximum amount you will pay per click. You can adjust your bids depending on the performance of your ads and budgets, allowing you to maximize your return on investment.
- Manual CPC bidding: You manually set bids, allowing you greater control and flexibility in setting goals.
- With Manual CPC bidding, you have more control over the cost of each click and a better understanding of how much is spent on each click.
Get help from PPC Force
If all of this seems like a lot of work. That is because it is. Navigating the bidding strategies above are best left to experts like those at PPC Force. Contact us today to discuss your brands goals and get started with Pay Per Click marketing for your REI business!