Surfside PPC Podcast

Welcome to the Surfside PPC podcast. Go to Surfside PPPC.com to join Surfside PPPC Premium and ask your questions. Thanks for listening and please subscribe. What's up everyone? Welcome to the Surfside PPC podcast. This is episode number 15. So, episode number 15, I figure it's a good time to go over some bidding strategies. I don't if I've covered bidding strategies too much here. So, the way that I think about bidding strategies and really the the different ways that you can use them to essentially at more conversions. So that'll be the main focus of this episode. As always, if you want to join Surfside PPC premium, you get access to my premium content. I am releasing an AI marketing course. So that will be released just directly through the premium section to all of my premium members. So if you're a premium member, you will get access to that. There will be 20 total modules that I'll be releasing this year. And then I'll put it all together into one long video as well. So if you're interested in my AI marketing course, you join Surfside PPC Premium. It's $5 a month. There's also yearly plans through Patreon and through school, so you could also get them through there as well. So, let's get into our questions. So, we're going to put in our question here. Really, we only have one question today. So, I know there's a lot of times I'm I'm doing multiple questions, but this one, it's really just going to be, you know, kind of a bidding strategy. What What are some best practices as far as bidding strategies depending on the campaign type you're running? So, let's put in question the only question for the episode.
What are some Google Ads bidding best practices. How do I drive more conversions and more revenue in my account with my bids? How do I bid on brand new campaigns with Google Ads?
Okay, so the question is going to be what are some best practices when it comes to bidding? What is the best strategy when it comes to bid strategies? So the very first thing I'll get right out of the way is target impression share bidding is one that I just don't use. I don't use it for branded campaigns. I don't use it for any type of campaign. I don't use it for competitive campaigns. I think it's a way for Google to essentially make you overpay for inventory. So, Google probably likes it when you're using target impression share because they can stick you in random auctions where you're bidding very very high to be at the top of that auction even though the searcher the search you know what you're actually targeting might not be the greatest thing in the world. Can it work for like exact match? I guess but I've never seen it actually work well. So, target impression share to get it right out of the way. Not something I really use and not something I'm really going to talk about too extensively. So, let's start with kind of more of the what I'll call manual bidding. So, maximize clicks and manual CPC. Now, you're going to say maximize clicks is not a manual bidding strategy. While I agree, it does still let you set a bid and you're able to set the keywords you're targeting and the max bid that you want to set for those keywords you're targeting. A best practices with maximize clicks is using exact match keywords and not creating some massive keyword list. So, When it comes to manual CPC, kind of the same thing. I use it more for exact match keywords. Not using it nearly as much when it comes to phrase match. It's really going to be more of a okay, we have an exact match keywords that we're targeting. We're going to use manual CPC and we're going to try to get every last bit that we can out of these keywords. So, that's the way that I generally view maximize clicks. Manual CPC is pretty good bidding strategy still when you use them with exact match keywords and really a good starting point at times. And sometimes there are certain clients I work with where hitting the conversion thresholds that we need to hit is actually very difficult. So getting 15 forms, 15 calls in a month can be extremely difficult for clients when you're targeting a small area and you have a very specific service that's a little bit more expensive. Like if I do, you know, if I'm a grandfather clock restoration, it's like there's not all these people in local markets looking for all of these services at all times. And especially when you factor in, okay, you also have like 20 local competitors doing a similar service then it does become very difficult and I think one of the things that I'm finding right now is sometimes there are companies with special who specialize in services that are better at services than these large companies but these large companies provide 10 different services. So therefore they have basically more of a moat and more of the ability to get more clients more leads and from a Google ad standpoint from a pure advertising and search engine optimization standpoint they tend to do a little bit better because they are able to actually drive more of the conversion volume that's needed to effectively run smart bidding strategies. So, manual CPC, maximize clicks, those are two that I will use at times with exact match keywords. And that's really the only reason I use those. I have done some manual CPC with phrase match in the last year, I guess, but it's not really something I do often. It's generally going to be if I'm doing manual bidding, it is going to be exact match keywords just because I think that's the best way to do it and it's the best way to have some level of control. It's funny. I saw somebody recently talking about how they're like, "I'm only bidding on exact match keywords and still, you know, a huge percentage of my search terms are hidden. I'm still not able to see everything. I'm still targeting things I don't want to target." It's like, yes, the the days of just pure keyword targeting are kind of over. And the only really way to get close to that is by using exact match keywords. So that's like the only way to actually use it. So ultimately for me, it's like, you know, what we're going to talk about next is like the ultimate where you want to be when it comes to bidding. So, for me, and and this is where I go, I don't really have one answer for this, but when you're starting a brand new campaign, the number one thing you want to do is get good conversion data into it. Good conversion data costs a lot of money. No matter who you are, no matter what brand you have, it costs a lot of money. Unless you have a very, very established brand that's never run ads before, you're just turning ads on for the first time. So, there's times where you do that and you're like, "Oh, wow. This actually works." And generally, the best way to get conversion data in quickly is to use the brand. Sometimes I create a performance max campaign. Just create a branded campaign and sometimes you just start with your exact match keywords for, hey, here's the 10 to 20 to 30 to 40, you know, it depends on how big the brand is and how many things you're selling, how many services you have. Here's the 10 to 20 to 30 to 40 best keywords that we have. Okay, great. We have our best keywords now. Now, let's try to use our best keywords and squeeze everything we can out of them. So, the best way to do that is to start them with exact match. Over time, what you want to do is start loosening up your keyword match types. That means going from exact match to phrase, going from phrase match to broad match potentially. So, that's what you want to do first and foremost is is really loosen up those match types a little bit. And then using smart bidding strategies like maximize conversions and especially target CPA. If you have values attached to your campaign, then you can use maximize conversion value, target return on ad spend. So, I would say when it comes to lead generation, if somebody reaches out to me and says, I am looking to drive phone calls or I'm looking to drive forms or I'm looking to drive some form of both. It's like great. So, what I'm doing then after that is we are running a search campaign and I would probably also look to run a performance max campaign and our goal is to drive conversions, drive the leads that you're you're looking to drive. So, lead forms, if it's appointment bookings, you know, it might be a Calendarly appointment, if it's a phone call, all of these things are the things I am looking to track and drive and get more of. And the best way to do that is when you're first launching your campaign, you need to get, you know, your goal in the first 30 days is let's get as many leads as possible. And you might be like, well, it's easier said than done. Yes, it's going to cost money. Yes, you're going to have to invest your money. Yes, you're going to have to pay for advertising. That's how advertising works. So, when you're running your advertising, basically through Google Ads, your goal is getting in conversion data as quickly as possible because once you have it in, then Ultimately, what your goal is is to use your bidding and your targeting and continuously refine it to say, "Okay, here is what I want you to target Google. I want you to go out and I want you to find me conversions." Essentially, that's what you're saying. I want you to go out and I want you to find me all of these conversions because I need conversions for my campaign. I need conversions for this to work, you know, for for my bidding strategies to actually work. So, if you start your campaign with a manual bidding strategy, you don't have to. You can start with maximize conversions. If you do, Start with maximize conversions. You may have to start with more phrase match keywords, broad match keywords potentially. I do find that I have trouble sometimes when it's like, okay, we're launching a campaign and we're targeting these three or four towns and we have this specific service that we're targeting and our goal is essentially we want to target this very small search volume of people that are searching this and we're going to start with maximize conversion. At times you'll find like the initial clicks, searches, activity, everything that's coming in is just more expensive than you would probably anticipate and would probably want. And then the other issue is not only is it more expensive, you also just have no conversion data to go along with all these expenses. So, you're bidding either manually or potentially you're saying, "I have maximized conversions with broad match or phrase match and it's just not really driving anything. I spent $1,000 $1,500 and it's not driving anything." And sometimes there's just a big waste in the beginning. So, it really depends on what your budget is, how quick you need to things to get on track and ultimately what your strategy is when it comes to like here's how we need to get leads as quickly as possible. I have people reach out to me that are like, "All right, I have money to spend, but the first $500 I really need to get something out of." And it's kind of the the worst case scenario to be in with Google ads, especially nowadays. It's gotten even worse where like you need conversion data to really compete and compete effectively. So, the number one thing I would say is if you are trying to actually drive conversions consistently, the best way to do it is spend that money initially, get your conversion data in, and then loosen up your targeting a little bit to phrase match or broad match and use a target CPA type bidding strategy or along with the maximize conversions type bidding strategy. So that's going to be like the only way to really drive the conversion volume you're looking for, but you need to spend initially to get to get that data in. So to kind of wrap up the video and wrap up this question, when it comes to bidding strategy best practices, the number one thing you can do is use a target CPA or target return on ad spend bidding strategy in an account that has a lot of conversion data. Now, you need the data for those bidding strategies to work effectively. If you want to launch a campaign and say, "I'm going to launch this campaign. I'm going to set my target CPA in the very beginning. So, we're going to do maximize conversions with a target CPA. We'll set a target CPA really higher than what we think we're going to get initially. You can't go in and say, "Okay, I want to drive leads for retaining walls and patios and driveway installations, but I want to drive them for $20 per lead." It's like, yes, we all do. It's like, I would love to start a company that drives $20 lead, you know, and getting $20 leads for massive installations for huge projects that are are ultimately really competitive. So, there's companies saying, "Yeah, I'm willing to spend $200, $250, $300 for that lead because that lead could be massive, massive upside for my company." And not only massive upside for me with one job in this neighborhood, but I do one job for this company and oh, look, there's a neighbor is interested because they see the work that we did. Oh, look, somebody sees her truck in the driveway and gives us a call and says, "Hey, you know, I'm interested in XYZ." So ultimately, what you're trying to do is you're fighting for every single job you have when it comes to Google Ads, but from a bidding perspective as an advertiser, your goal is getting conversion data in and then bidding for more conversion. The number one priority for me in the first 30 to 60 days working with a client, a new client, especially when it's brand new on Google Ads, is our goal is we need to get conversion data in and then I need to talk to you and say, "Are these conversions any good? Is what's coming in actually driving good results for you?" And there's times when launching a brand new campaign, things can be a little bit slow. It's actually like my biggest stress is that very first month when we're running ads because ultimately there's you're going in and competing in an environment where people are already optimized and already bidding effectively and already have things working very efficiently. So, you're going in and saying, "I need to try to be as efficient as them." But the first month or two is, you know, it's a learning period. So once you get through that learning period, the whole point of bidding is, you know, you go through and you say, "Okay, we're going to set we're going to set actual targets for all these things that we want to hit. We're going to actually, you know, say, does our bidding and our budgeting and what our monthly goals are, do they all align?" Okay, we're budgeting $300 a day, which means at the end of the month, we want to spend $9,000, right? $300 a day, we're spending about $9,000 a month. If we're bidding with a target CPA bid strategy and we're saying, target CPA set at $150. Then ultimately what we're saying is we want to drive two conversions per day. So two leads per day, so 60 leads over the course of a month. And the other thing with Google Ads is you always have to kind of factor in, especially with Google business profiles now and the way that the customer journey has changed so much that if I'm spending $9,000 and let's just say I'm driving 60 conversions a month, you know, even if I have a 10% conversion rate, let's just say, which isn't ult ultra high, but 10% conversion rate is is probably good overall. It just depends on what you're targeting. 10% conversion rate, that means I drove 600 clicks and 60 conversions. That means there's 540 additional clicks. Now, assuming there's probably some duplicates in there, but you know, you're reaching hundreds of people that even if they're not converting today, you know, next month they might convert, the month after they might convert, might be something where they click today and then you have a performance max campaign that brings them back in. You're running meta ad that brings them back in. So, when you're thinking about your bidding strategy, you really need to think about like the whole customer journey. If I'm trying to get a new Google Ads client, I need to have an understanding that like, okay, right now I'm competing with every single Google Ads person on the planet. Thanks for listening to the Surfside PPC podcast. Please surfside PPC.com for management or consulting options. Or to get my course, join Surfside PPC premium through my YouTube channel, my school page, or my Patreon. Please subscribe.