It’s hardly a secret to anyone that Google AdWords and other similar forms of PPC advertising can result in quick gains for invested businesses.
The keyword there is “can.” Success is not baked in, and without understanding the fundamentals of eCommerce PPC management, the whole process may quickly become expensive and untenable.
Now, to rewind a step to keywords – one of the most important facets of eCommerce PPC management is bid strategy. Let’s take a look at what this is and why it matters.
What Is Bid Strategy?
Before beginning an eCommerce PPC campaign, campaign managers or their eCommerce clients (ideally, together) must determine which keywords they want to target in order to appear at the tops of the search engine results for the most promising searches.
In addition, they must also determine which keywords it does not make sense for their ads to appear in the search results.
Then, they must determine how much of their PPC budget they can allocate to ensure that they appear when and where customers are searching for their products or services that will meet their needs.
Why Is Bid Strategy Important to Success?
The lack of an effective bid strategy can make it appear that there are problems with an eCommerce PPC marketing campaign that are not actually there.
For instance, a poor or ineffective bid strategy can result in low impressions, low clicks, and worse. These can create low-quality ads that don’t generate a return and are expensive for no reason.
A poor bid strategy can make it seem like PPC ad copy is low quality or poorly targeted and it can also make it seem like associated landing pages are not optimized for conversions, when in reality the problem is that the business authorizing the ad campaign simply is not willing to bid aggressively on the keywords necessary to generate the necessary returns.
What Are Some Common Bid Strategies?
The best way to set a bid strategy is to create one based on your goals. The following are some of the more common types of bid strategies set by eCommerce PPC management providers.
●CPA strategy (cost-per-action)
Not to be confused with cost-per-acquisition, in this capacity, CPA, or cost-per-action, is one of the best strategies to pursue if the goals of your campaign revolve around conversion rates.
This strategy is unique in that it allows you to bid on conversions, but your campaign must first have conversion tracking set up and it must target the search or display networks or both.
●CPC strategy (cost-per-click)
A CPC strategy is best if the goals of a campaign revolve mostly around bringing in more traffic to a website.
One option is to select a maximum number of clicks desired; if you choose this, then AdWords will automatically set the bid strategy for you to bring in those clicks.
A manual CPC bid strategy might be more effective for other businesses since it allows the manager to focus on keywords and placements as well as to determine how to allocate the marketing budget.
●CPM strategy (cost-per-thousand impressions)
CPM strategies work best for PPC campaigns in which the goal is to get as many impressions as possible. CPM strategies enable bidders to target keywords as well as placement.
Though it is not the best strategy for eCommerce businesses whose goals revolve around conversion or direct response, CPM strategies are ideal for businesses that want to improve brand awareness, even without the need for a high click-through rate.
Current Bid Strategy Not Meeting Your Goals? It’s Time for a New eCommerce PPC Management Provider
Whether your goal is to drive traffic, improve awareness, or generate conversions through paid advertising strategies like Google AdWords and Google Shopping Ads, an effective PPC strategy is incomplete without a custom-tailored approach to bid management.
Visit 1DigitalⓇ Agency online at 1DigitalAgency.com. They’ve devised and implemented PPC marketing strategies for online businesses that serve all corners of the eCommerce market.
Get in touch with their customer service team on their website or by contacting them at 888-982-8269 today.
