The AdWords Bidding Tutorial Video explains how to structure your Google AdWords bids to make sure you are attracting the right traffic to the right keywords in your Google AdWords Campaigns.
AdWords Bidding Strategy Summary
- Remember, Google will always chase the money.
- Bid highest on the keyword that you most want to match.
In your AdWords bidding strategy, structure your bids for your keyword match types in a similar way to this example for mens shoes:
Exact = [mens shoes] Maximum bid
Phrase = “mens shoes” -5%
Broad match modified = +mens +shoes -10%
Broad match = mens shoes -20%
Less is bid on the phrase match to attract exact search traffic for mens shoes to the exact match keyword.
Bid less again on the modified broad match keyword as it is preferable for the traffic to match your phrase rather than the modified broad.
Considerably less again is bid on the broad match to use to pick up searches that haven’t been picked up by any of the other three keyword match types.
Structuring Modified Broad Match Keywords
- Broad Modifiers can be quite long tail keywords.
- The more specific the keyword is the more specific your ad should be to take the search to a very specific landing.
Follow this example:
+men +patent +formal +shoes +10%
+mens +formal +shoes +5%
+mens +shoes Maximum bid
With this AdWords bidding strategy we are:
- Attracting traffic away from mens shoes towards mens formal shoes
- Attracting traffic away from mens formal shoes to mens patent formal shoes
Adopting this AdWords management bidding structure should result in higher quality scores with highly relevant and motivated buyers knowing exactly what they are looking for arriving at your site.
Note: Even if it matches precisely, Google won’t always match the search term to your keyword.
Bidding for Positions: Does position matter?
The truth, yes it does and no it doesn’t, or not so much.
Use these two example scenarios as a guide:
Price Comparison Search
The searcher wants to find a price for the product and a website that has the product in stock and available. Where ever they buy this product from it is the same product.
The top 4 position in this example can make a significant difference so position is important.
Shopping Search
This is a broader search where the searcher hasn’t decided what brand or type of shoes, for example, they want. Within the overall AdWords bidding strategy, we are in the infancy stage of the search funnel and the user is probably going to shop around until they find what they like.
Being in position 3 or 4 in this scenario is not so bad, the user doesn’t even know what they want yet and neither do we, so it is tough to land them on a page which is highly relevant to their search and therefore converting those clicks into sales is harder work.
Note: Some campaigns will not pick up many more sales in positions 2 or 3 rather than 5 or 6. In some cases, a higher position may not achieve a higher conversion rate. That results in the Cost Per Conversion being higher but not actually achieving more sales. You should analyse this regularly and adjust your AdWords management bidding strategy accordingly.
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