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.
Just because you want to target website visitors in the search results using Google Ads remarketing for search (RLSA) – you may not be able to.
Google sets a threshold of needing over 1,000 remarketing cookie sets in a 30 day period to show remarketing for search ads. For many advertisers this bar is just too high. You will only need 100 cookie sets in a 30 day period to show remarketing ads in the Google Ads display network, but the bar is much, much higher for search ads.
I recommend that you try to lengthen the period of your cookie set from 30 days to 90 days to see if this will make a difference in your ability to use RLSA.
RLSA ads can be a great way to target in search results advertising shopping cart abandoners and other site visitors. Consider bidding a minimum of +30% to get action if you do have enough cookies.
Consider setting up a separate program for RLSA and use general keywords so your ads will appear on more queries, set the bid low, but boost up with a bid adjustment, and consider a -100% bid adjustment for mobile to start to keep your costs low until you know the program will generate a return for your needs.
Showing ads to people who have visited your website already using a target and bid strategy can be very good to add conversions to your monthly plan.
For more information on our services for Google Ads advertisers please visit our website at www.mccordweb.com.
We Are a Google Partner Specializing in Search Marketing and Search Optimization.
In our new world where over 65% of all Google.com searches are done on smartphones, what happens to a website that is not mobile-friendly in regards to lead conversions, store sales, and organic placement?
The PPC Picture
Google has lots to say on this topic of mobile friendliness. For sites that are not mobile-friendly and the business owner is advertising in Google Ads, Google flags the account with messages such as this:
“Avoid losing customers on mobile devices by improving your mobile site. Recommended because 98.57% of your mobile clicks go to non-mobile-friendly pages on your site. 68.97% of clicks from all devices come from mobile. 98.57% 138 of 140 clicks go to pages that are not mobile-friendly.“
As Google Ads is incredibly focused on relevance and offering the best user experience, I expect in the future ads that are not showing mobile-friendly pages to start to receive very poor quality scores driving up the click cost and reducing exposure due to a low ad rank.
Google has been pretty forthcoming in regards to page speed as well. A 1-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions. For a store generating $60,000 in sales a month, that is a loss of $4,200 in monthly sales. In a year, that translates into $50,400. A non-mobile friendly site is not optimized for speedy download and may be virtually impossible to use on a smartphone driving away potential customers. Many will never come back to visit. This is a very serious impact for Google Ad activity.
For sites that do not have a mobile-friendly website, conversion numbers are dropping in Google Ads. Mobile activity is a very big part of the conversion path now for sales and leads.
WordStream has done a very nice visual on sales, conversions, and cost per conversion in mobile and it is clear that mobile is big business. Without a mobile website you are missing out on a huge sector of growing and converting traffic.
For some websites that are not mobile-friendly using Duda Mobile to do a scripted redirect to a Duda Mobile mini site worked – but no longer. Google Ads is aggressively disapproving ads for our clients that are using this approach and we are now having to remove the code from those websites effectively making them now not mobile-friendly for organic or for pay per click activity.
The Organic Picture
For organic traffic, know that Google now spiders the mobile version of a website and this is the content that now determines your site’s organic ranking on Google.com for all devices, not just mobile.
By not updating your website to be mobile-friendly Marketing and Growth Hacking says you can kiss your Google rankings good bye.
Additionally, Marketing and Growth Hacking states “Based on the blogs Google is putting out, we can confidently assume companies who don’t optimize for mobile will see their rankings disappear. At the same time, companies who adopt and take advantage of mobile-friendly sites early-on have and will continue to see higher rankings.”
I agree that if you mean to be in business, grow sales, and compete effectively, your website and store must be mobile-friendly.
For more information about our services please visit us at www.McCordWeb.com.
Personally, I look for a higher number than 15 in a 30 day period before I turn on maximize conversion bidding.
Here’s why…
When Google Ads does not have enough 30 day historical data, the click costs will be very high and you will not see a nice increase in conversions; rather only higher cost conversions.
If you have under 15 conversions in a 30 day period or your campaign drops below 15 conversions. Move out of automated bidding programs like maximize conversions or Target CPA bidding and move to enhanced CPC (Cost per Click) bidding until you get back to the 15 number.
If you are doing automated bidding make sure you are looking at the average cost per click and maximum bid compared to the first and top of page bid. If you see numbers that you are spending with Google setting the bid that you think are ridiculously high, then move out of that bidding algorithm into one where you have greater control, pause the problem keyword, or review what you can do to add negative keywords.
Maximize conversion and Target CPA bidding can be great for a high converting account, but those at the margin of 15 leads in 30 days may find these algorithms generate click costs that are simply “too rich”.
If you need help from an experienced Google Ads manager, I encourage you to find out more about our services and programs. We are small business friendly!
