[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”-100″ margin_bottom=”0″ padding_top=”0″ padding_right=”0″ padding_bottom=”0″ padding_left=”0″][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” dimension_margin=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_imageframe image_id=”2419″ max_width=”” style_type=”none” stylecolor=”” hover_type=”none” bordersize=”” bordercolor=”” borderradius=”” align=”center” lightbox=”no” gallery_id=”” lightbox_image=”” alt=”” link=”” linktarget=”_self” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=””]https://www.brandrocket.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/header-manual-cpc.jpg[/fusion_imageframe][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container][fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”-20%” margin_bottom=”20%” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ spacing=”” center_content=”yes” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” undefined=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_title margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” hide_on_mobile=”medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” size=”1″ content_align=”left” style_type=”default” sep_color=””]

AdWords Bidding Options

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Manual CPC

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Manual CPC

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By David Smania

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For anyone who has ever driven a vehicle with manual transmission, you know the advantages. You have full control over the gears, torque, and speed of the vehicle by engaging the clutch and manually choosing the right gears for the driving conditions.

In similar fashion, the Manual CPC bidding options in Google AdWords gives you full control over your bids, from the campaign all the way down to the keyword.

If your ad groups are configured properly in tight, thematic groupings, this also allows you to set proper bid levels for profitable and not-so-profitable keywords.   This granularity is often desired when an account is fully optimized for performance.

Conceptually, manual bidding is the most similar to a live auction. You set your max bid price, and Google won’t bid more than this value in any circumstance.   It is also the one bidding method that does not require the installation of a conversion tracking code on your server, so it’s the go-to-choice right out of the gate.

Manual CPC bidding is also compatible with all of the AdWords advanced options. As an example, the need to use advanced ad scheduling where bid amounts are changed during different times of the day or days of the week.

Setting the Right Bidding Amount for Manual CPC

One of the most common questions that come up for manual CPC bidding pertains to cost, as in “how much should we spend?”.

Unfortunately, Google doesn’t specify an exact value, as this is a dynamic, ever-changing marketplace for keywords, and the CPC required to rank well is affected by many variables, such as ad rank, quality score, time of day, etc.

Our first goal for our clients is to get a sense of the market, so we’ll head to Google and perform a standard search to gauge the level of competition and complexity of ad structures. If we see well-defined ads exploiting the right extensions, we know that it’s going to be fairly competitive.

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“If your ad groups are configured properly in tight, thematic groupings, this also allows you to set proper bid levels for profitable and not-so-profitable keywords. This granularity is often desired when an account is fully optimized for performance.”

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Next, we head over to the Google Keyword Planner and try some of the more obvious keywords that will match this ad group.   We look to see the bid levels that Google provides.

The suggested bid values are all estimates and highly unreliable as Google has no idea at this point how we’ll be optimizing our Quality Score with well-written ads and landing pages that are on-point.   We accept the suggested bid values as estimates and categorize each as cheap, medium, or expensive keywords. The aim at this point is to really establish a range.

Our goal on every new campaign is to first know the numbers.  In simple terms, what is a customer worth to the business over time?   How much are we will spend to acquire each customer?  We use this as a guide to make sure we’re not overspending for clicks.

For advertisers using a variety of keyword match types, it’s also important to set manual CPC bids on a tiered basis. Because exact and phrase match keywords typically indicate a prospect who is using search terms with high commercial intent, this is an auction that is worth more to us.

If the Google Keyword Planner shows estimated bids of $8-12, we might set a structure similar to the following.

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This allows us to capture high-intent searchers with ads and landing pages that are optimized to convert, instead of a broad match ad that by its very nature is not addressing a distinct search query.

Once the ads have time to run, proper pricing information will begin to form as the market takes shape for our particular ads and landing pages.

Next Up – Target Search Page Location

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