Breakdown of Google Ads Automated Strategies

As the preeminent search engine, Google has long dominated the world of online advertising. Running Google Ads is often the best way to generate leads and opportunities. This all-important advertising platform allows you to drive targeted traffic of ready-to-buy customers to keyword-optimized landing pages.Unfortunately, monitoring your ad campaigns and budget can be time-consuming and extremely labor-intensive. That’s where Google Ads Automated strategies come into play.

‍What are Google Ads Automated Strategies?

‍Manually monitoring your ad campaigns requires a considerable amount of time and resources. Unfortunately, most digital marketing teams lack those resources. However, with Google Ads Automated strategies, your digital marketing team can devote more time to other digital strategies while letting Google manage your ad campaigns and their appropriate budgets.The process is designed around your predetermined campaign goals and budget. Once those campaign goals and budgets are defined, Google will adjust your bid amount per click to increase the likelihood that your ad will reach its desired audience and result in a conversion.Ultimately, it’s all about maximizing the performance of all your campaigns. The solution allows you to group multiple strategies within your ad portfolios. You decide the strategy rules that apply for each campaign within those portfolios. Google will then manage the campaign on your behalf without exceeding your allotted budget for the given campaign. So, what are some of the automated strategies you can enact?

‍Understanding Google Ads Automated Strategies

‍Google lists six different automated strategies. These include increasing site visits with maximized clicks, increasing visibility with target impression share, getting more conversions with your cost-per-acquisition (CPA), defining a target return on ad spend (ROAS), maximizing conversion bidding, and finally, enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC).Each of these six automated strategies is designed to attain a different goal. It’s up to you to decide which goal suits your business and what you want to achieve. With automated strategies, you no longer have to use manual cost-per-click bidding, updating your bids based on your remaining budget each time. Instead, Google will manage it for you. Here are each of these strategies outlined in detail.

1. Increasing Site Visits with Maximized Clicks

Much like the name implies, this strategy is entirely devoted to increasing traffic to your website. Google manages your bids to generate the highest number of clicks within your ad budget. This strategy can be applied to the keywords used in a single ad campaign or multiple campaigns in a more extensive portfolio.When running this campaign, be sure your landing paged is optimized for conversion. While it’s tempting to want to drive as much traffic as possible to your website, you’ll quickly blow through your budget if your conversion rates are too low. While your goal may be to increase traffic, it won’t result in revenue if you’re page doesn’t convert. As such, it might be prudent to start slow while you continue to optimize your landing page.

2. Increasing Visibility with Target Impression Share

This strategy sets bids to have your ad appear at the very top of search engine results pages (SERPs) or close to the top in search results. Much like the earlier strategy, you can apply this strategy for a single campaign or multiple campaigns within a given portfolio. This strategy is only available within Google’s Search Network and does not apply to the Google Display Network.  This is the ideal strategy for those who want a chance to appear in one of the highly-coveted spots in search results. This makes it a perfect solution for local-based search results or geofencing and targeting location ads. However, running this outside local search can be expensive, so clearly define why you’re running this strategy before enacting it.

3. Maximizing Conversions with Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA)

While the previous strategy was only available in Google’s Search Network, this strategy is available in both the search and display network. The goal of this strategy is to increase your conversions across both networks. Google will manage the bids across both networks with the intention of increasing your conversions within your CPA budget.This isn’t a strategy built on driving traffic to your website. It’s not focused on optimized ad placements either. Its purpose is for companies who want sales or who want subscription forms completed by potential customers. As such, the bid cost for this CPA strategy is relatively high compared to other strategies.

4. Defining a Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

This is a strategy ideally-suited to companies that place greater importance on some conversions compared to others. It can be run as a stand-alone strategy on single campaigns or within a larger portfolio strategy. You determine the value scale on conversions. Google will then set your bids so that the more valuable conversions are more likely to occur. However, you will receive a range on these conversions. As such, some conversions may have a higher or lower value to your overall goal.

5. Maximizing Conversion Bidding

This strategy aims to maximize the number of conversions within your ad budget. Google sets your bids so that you receive the maximum number of conversions relative to your advertising budget. Unlike the previous strategy that aims for higher value conversions, this strategy aims to increase your number of conversions overall.

6. Enhanced Cost-Per-Click (ECPC)

This strategy gives you more control over how much or little you bid on keywords. It’s a solution available within a manual CPC campaign/bid or a larger portfolio of campaigns. Google will automatically adjust your bids so that you increase conversions without going beyond your predetermined cost for each conversion.This strategy is ideal for campaigns where you want to retain control with manual bidding but still want some automated bidding.

‍Pros and Cons of Automated Strategies

‍The obvious benefit of using automated strategies is the time you’ll save. The idea with automated strategies is that it relies upon the strength of Google’s learning algorithm. Over time, the intention is for you to see higher returns as opposed to managing campaigns manually.The drawback of automated strategies is that you may encounter wild fluctuations in terms of results. This often makes it difficult for people to stay committed to the process. Also, the best results are based on historical trends, so it may not be an ideal solution if you’re just starting with Google Ads.‍

Navigating Automated Strategies With the Right Partner

‍As a Google Ads agency, PBJ Marketing understands how overwhelming automated strategies might appear. Our focus is to work with you to help you navigate the multiple tools Google offers. We can enact and manage your ad campaigns, always keeping you up-to-date on results. If you would like to see how our proactive approach can help grow your business, contact us now.