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Tired of manually updating bids? Automated bidding takes the heavy lifting and guesswork out of managing your Google Ads campaigns, letting you focus on your business. Discover how Smart Bidding strategies, such as maximise conversions and maximise conversion value, can boost your results.
How does bidding work on Google Ads?
Every time someone searches on Google, Google Ads runs an auction to determine which ads will show on the Search results page and in what order.
This same auction model determines ad placements throughout Google’s extensive network, including Gmail, YouTube videos, and millions of websites in the Google Display Network.
When you set up your Google Ads campaign, you’ll need to select keywords to help connect you to your desired audience.
Your ad’s eligibility to appear depends on several factors, including its relevance, your landing page experience, and the competitiveness of your keyword bids.
What are keywords?
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Why use automated bidding on Google Ads?
Most advertisers rely on Google Ads’ automated bidding to manage their bids. This approach eliminates the need to manually set and predict optimal bid levels for goals such as increasing clicks or conversions.
Whether you use an automated bid strategy for a single campaign (standard strategy) or multiple campaigns (portfolio bid strategy), Google Ads automatically adjusts bids based on the likelihood of the ad, leading to a click or conversion.
The system uses data from past bid performance to refine future bids. It learns over time, and you can track its progress, maintaining control over your spending limits.
Automated bidding eliminates the need to manually set and predict optimal bid levels for goals such as increasing clicks or conversions.
How can Smart Bidding boost automated bidding performance?
Smart Bidding strategies are a subset of Google Ads’ automated bidding, powered by Google AI. They make bid decisions based on a wide range of contextual signals and provide flexible controls and detailed performance reports to help you increase conversions and conversion values.
Here are two Smart Bidding strategies to consider for your campaigns:
1. Maximise conversions with optional target CPA
This bidding strategy is designed to generate as many conversions as possible within your specified budget. Here’s how it works:
- Maximise conversions: Google Ads uses AI to assess historical data and predict which clicks are most likely to convert, automatically adjusting bids to prioritise these high-potential clicks — all within your set budget.
- Optional target CPA: In addition to maximising conversions, you can set a target cost-per-acquisition (CPA), which acts as a budget safeguard. This ensures that the average cost per conversion stays within your desired range, maintaining budget control.
This strategy is useful if you know your ideal cost for gaining a new customer and are ready to get as many conversions as possible. It’s also a good fit if you’re comfortable with some flexibility in cost per conversion as long as you’re maximising your overall results. Essentially, it allows you to prioritise volume while keeping an eye on your acquisition costs.
2. Maximise conversion value with target ROAS
Some conversions do not matter as much to your business goals, while others are of higher value and should be reported and optimised for accordingly. Maximise conversion value (with optional ROAS goal) helps you maximise your budget to acquire higher-value customers.
Maximise conversion value with a set target return on ad spend (ROAS) bridges this gap, allowing you to achieve two key objectives simultaneously:
- Drive the highest overall value from your conversions: This strategy prioritises driving high-value conversions by focusing on clicks that are most likely to result in sales or other valuable actions.
- Optional target ROAS: With this strategic addition, you specify your desired ROAS — for example, aiming for £4 in sales for every £1 spent. Google Ads utilises AI to predict the potential value of each click and automatically adjusts your bids to prioritise those most likely to meet your target ROAS while maximising the total value of your conversions.
This combined approach allows you to focus on both the quantity and quality of conversions, ensuring you get the most value from your Google Ads budget.
Automated bidding and Google AI can help you achieve your marketing goals, regardless of your business. This frees up valuable time previously spent manually updating bids for specific ad groups or keywords, allowing you to focus on your higher-level growth strategy and other important areas.