I’ve seen mentioned on the Web in several places that Google Ads is an auction bid and then again that it is not. Finally in Google’s own help information on Google Ads they themselves use the “Auction” term.
I have long felt that getting to position one on a keyword had an auction factor to it as one could bid up the price, but in some cases never pay the actual bid price and raise a keyword s’s position. Now at least it is clearly in the open. Yes Google Ads does have an auction-like bid to position.
Remember there are additional factors that affect your keywords page position like quality score, ad text, and even landing page match and now auction is another one.
Planning ahead to boost your business for 2019 takes planning and strategizing with your sales team. Once you determine your plan and set a goal for sales, take time to set your Google Ads budget to achieve your plan.
If you are currently selling products or services that generate $200,000 and your plan is to achieve a 20% increase in sales, make sure that your Google Ads budget has an equal increase or a specific plan to generate additional low click cost activity such as in the Display network.
It is crucial that your ad spend be increased to help your program achieve success. Many clients will set a Google Ads budget and then not do a yearly review . It is a good plan to every January review your last year ad expenses, gross sales, sales attributable to Google Ads and your growth plan for the next year.
At the minimum, I would encourage a 10% increase in your Google Ad Spend budget if you have been successful in having Google Ads drive phone calls, emails, and other beneficial actions on your website.
If you need help with your Google Ads plan and want to jump start activity in 2019, I invite you to visit our website to see if our services would be a good match for your needs.
Often in strange economic times a business may need to trim back Google Ads budgets. We are definitely in one of those strange periods where interest in services appears to be high, but customers are not moving into conversions.
The stock market and drama within the federal government have created a climate of “wait and see”. But advertisers are working to fiercely compete in Google Ads for the available clicks even if customers are not moving to buy.
If and when you have to cut back your advertising budget; do it smartly based on conversions and value to your business.
First, sort your data for a longer period than 30 days. I will usually use a 6 month period. Note the conversions of each campaign to the total as a percentage. Then decide on the new total 30 day ad spend you can live with. Divide that number by 30.4 to arrive at your daily ad spend budget.
Multiply your daily budget by the conversion percent of each ad group to arrive at your new campaign budget. Then look to do a reality check. If you’ve got remarketing at less than $10 a day Google really will not serve that program. If you have some campaigns at $10 or $15 a day but your average cost per click is $5, you will get very little activity for that program.
Instead consider grouping some of those low budget items into a shared budget to try to help Google be able to serve your programs that you have put on a diet.
Remember, big changes to your budget will take about 7 to 14 days for Google to adjust to again. Be patient to see results at your new lower budget.
As more businesses feel pressure to squeeze every cent from Google Ads advertisements, one area that you should not skimp on is the quality of your Google Ads account manager.
Most Google Ads account management services and account managers will charge about 10% of your scheduled ad spend to manage your account. If your ad budget is $7,000 for clicks this turns into $700 for your manager to make changes and monitor your account.
My firm takes a different approach, we bill by the hour for our time. To make it easy to understand our services, we have a grid showing estimated time to manage your program based on ad spend or number of running ad groups. You then buy a certain amount of hours from us monthly and we use this time to manage your account, perform analysis, to provide reporting and to strategize with you as needed on performance and improvements.
For the client with a $7,000 ad spend that would have paid $700 for account management, our fee would have been $450. That is 36% less than the typical account manager.