When you boil paid search down to its basic elements, there are three things that rise above all else: Bids, Ads and Keywords. While setting a bid is fairly easy to do, developing and utilizing an effective bid strategy for your account is more difficult. Maybe you’ve figured out a strategy that seems to be working well, but still aren’t meeting your goals. Or you need to start pushing the envelope on what you’ve been currently doing. In this webinar, we’ll discuss out-of-the-box bidding strategies and look at different angles on what you can implement to improve the effectiveness of your PPC campaigns. In the presentation, Fred Vallaeys from Optmyzr and Jeff Baum from Hanapin Marketing talk about bidding strategies that are not only on the cutting edge, but for the more advanced marketer. You’ll get expert-level PPC tips like: *Implementing a weekend bidding strategy to keep CPA at goal *Bidding towards your profit, instead of being restricted by CPA or CPL *Utilizing automated bid rules to adjust your cost per click *Working more efficiently with advanced AdWords scripts tricks

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&HOSTED BY:
Cutting Edge
PPC Bidding Strategies
You Should Be Using

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Presenters
• Frederick Vallaeys
– Founder of Optmyzr
– Hero Conf London Speaker
– PPC Hero Blogger
– @siliconvallaeys
• Jeff Baum
– Associate Director of Paid Search at
Hanapin Marketing
– Hero Conf London Speaker
– PPC Hero Blogger
– @jeffbaum71

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Join the conversation
• Include the hashtag #thinkppc in your
Twitter tweets.
Or use the webinar question box to send
us questions.

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Live Poll Question #1
How long have you been in PPC?
#thinkppc
A. Less than 1 year
B. 1-3 years
C. 3-5 years
D. 5+ years

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Live Poll Question #2
How do you manage your account(s)?
#thinkppc
a) I’m part of an in-house PPC team.
b) I do all the marketing myself.
c) I work for an agency.
d) I’m a consultant.

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Bidding for Profit

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Bidding for Profit

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Bidding for Profit

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Bidding for Profit-Calculating Profit
● Understand the full value of your ppc customers including
lifetime value.
● Make reasonable assumptions about each value factor so
revenue can be estimated.
● Factor out gross margins and advertising costs.

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Bidding for Profit-Approach To Testing
● Test areas of account that’ll provide enough conversion data.
● Common practice to increase bids 25%-30%.
● Understand your sales cycle to determine appropriate length of
test.
● Don’t set and forget. These are big bid modifications!

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Bidding for Profit-Scenario A
● Increasing bids led to higher avg position and more
conversions.
● CPA increased 20% BUT profit increased 143.75!%

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Bidding for Profit-Scenario B
● Granularity.
● Performance Variance by Product.

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Bidding for Profit-Practical Considerations
● Account Structure is Key. Group
Most Profitable Products and
Services Together.
● Bids Need to Make Sense for
Your Business.
● Test in Aggregate to Prove
Concept Then Get Granular.

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Bidding for Profit
Profit Is The Rocket Fuel That Propels Businesses. Don’t Let
Bid Strategy Be a Limiting Factor to Your PPC Success!

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Bidding for Profit- Convincing Stakeholders
● Innovation: Thinking About your
PPC differently.
● Growth: Removes Growth
Limitations CPA and other
efficiency metrics Cause.
● Bidding is Strategic: Align &
Support Business Goals. Not Just
a Tactic.
● Making Total Profit the KPI:
Scales your PPC more quickly.

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Weekend Bidding

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Weekend Bidding

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Weekend Bidding
● Cost per Lead Appreciably Higher on
Weekend.
● Account-Wide CPL Fluctuated As a
Result.
● Monthly Cost per Lead Goal Not Being
Met.

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Weekend Bidding
● Identified Source of Weekend Cost per
Lead Spike (Google Adwords Search
Account).
● Built Automated Rule to Reduce Bids 15%
Account Wide.
● Rule Went into Effect 12:01am Saturday
and reverted back to normal 12:01
Monday.

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Weekend Bidding-Results
● Total Weekend CPL Decreased 22%.
● Despite Bid Decrease, Lead Volume & Conv Rate
Improved.
● Reducing Account Wide Performance Fluctuation.

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Weekend Bidding-Lessons Learned

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Weekend Bidding-Performance Tracking
● Have a Method in Place to
Track Performance.
● Identify Deviations from the
Norm.
● Use Your Performance
Tracker as Guide to Deeper
Analysis.

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Weekend Bidding-Lessons Learned
● Understand Your Market’s
User Behavior.
● When Are The Most Likely to
Convert?
● Predict & Adjust Accordingly
(Using Your Analyzed Data).

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Weekend Bidding-Lessons Learned
● Don’t Leave Any Stone
Unturned
● Consider All the Possibilities.
● Answers & Solutions are
There if You Dig Deep Enough
to Find Them.

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Bid Automation

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Automation To The Rescue
• People get distracted
• Some are bad at math
• Want to work on fun projects

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Smart Automation Leverages Your Team’s Knowledge
“Adding human judgment to
statistical methods makes results
roughly 15 percent more accurate.
And it’s even true in chess: While the
best computers can now easily beat
the best humans, they can in turn be
beaten by humans aided by
computers.”
– Wired Magazine, January 2014

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Tools

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There’s Always Money In The Banana Stand
Source: RKG Blog

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Incremental Cost Per Conversion
Source: RKG Blog
Goal Action
Maximum Profit Stop buying clicks
when ICC > value of
click
Growth with no profit Stop buying clicks
when avg CPC >
value of click

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Hour-of-Week Reports
• Analyze a double segmented report using day of week and hour of day

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2 Types of Bid Management Methods
• Rule Based Bidding
• Portfolio Bidding
Find similar entities and manage these to a common average goal

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Rules Based

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The SalesX Bucket Bid Method™
High Converters
In last 30 days…
Conversions:
- At least 5
Known Converters
In last 30 days…
Conversions:
- Less than 5
- More than 1
Unknown
In last 30 days…
Conversions:
- None
Impressions:
- Less than 10
Top of page bid
First Page + 50%
First Page Bid
Filter All Keywords Apply
Bid Strategy

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Problem #1: Creating Good Buckets

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Problem #2: Choosing Lookback Windows

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Problem #3: Data Density

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Hybrid Approach To Get More
Data
• Alternate between duration and
account level

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Automated Rule: Bid To Average Position
< 3If Position
Then Bid
+10%
> 2If Position
Then Bid
-10%

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Portfolio Based

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Google’s Automated Bid Strategies
Bid Strategy Goal Level
Maximize Clicks More Site Visits C, AG, KW
Target Search Page
Location
More Ad Visibility C, AG, KW
Target CPA More Conversions at Target CPA C, AG
Enhanced CPC More Conversions C, AG
Target ROAS More Return on Ad Spend C, AG, KW
Target Outrank Outrank another domain’s ads C, AG, KW
Maximize Revenue Get as much conversion value as possible
Announced in
2014
Maximize Conversions Get as many conversions as possible
Announced in
2014

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First Page Bid Freshness
~70% of keywords with a change in QS have no reported
change in FPB

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Real Time Bidding
• Only Google can set bids at the
time of the query
• Enables them to consider more
factors than advertisers can to
determine the best bid

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An Example Of What Google Knows
• Google can set different bids based on search funnel data like this

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New: Test Different Bids
• Bid Simulator support
for Bid Strategies

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New: Bid Strategy Dashboard
• Get more
insights into
how bid
strategies are
working

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How Conversion Data Is Used By Google
• Tell Google how to
attribute conversions
when managing your
bids

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A Word Of Caution About Bid Automation
“As long as the humans […]
understand what it is they are
controlling, we’re fine. It’s when
they become slaves to the
numbers that trouble breaks out.”
– Wired Magazine, January 2014

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Advanced AdWords Automation
AdWords Scripts

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What Are AdWords Scripts?
AW Scripts are pieces of JavaScript
code that are put into an AdWords
account where they can be
scheduled to run automatically on a
predefined schedule.

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What Can AdWords Scripts Do?
Scripts can create reports and make account changes.
Supported entities:
• Shopping Product Groups
• Ad extensions
• Budgets
• Bid Strategies
• Advanced APIs
• Labels
• Keywords
• Bids
• Ads
• Ad Groups
• Campaigns
• Targeting
• Bid modifiers

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Prediction API + Scripts
1. Use algorithms to find similarities and build portfolio groups
2. Use AdWords Scripts to calculate and set the bids for the portfolios

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Scripts + Google Calendar

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Scripts For Bid Rules
Build complex rules that run as often as every hour

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Quicker Reporting With Scripts
• What is the Description Line 1 with the best CPA?

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PPC Retainers
Need some assistance for your PPC?
We offer on-going and one-time retainers.
Learn More:
http://www.hanapinmarketing.com/ppc-retainers/

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Live Q&A Time!

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Thank you for attending our webinar! #thinkppc
• Contact us Directly:
» Hanapin Feedback: marketing@hanapinmarketing.com
Optmyzr Feedback: support@optmyzr.com