Yes, Google Ads Bidding is in an Auction Environment
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.
We Are a Google Partner Specializing in Search Marketing and Search Optimization.
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.
We Are a Google Partner Specializing in Search Marketing and Search Optimization.
When does it make sense to advertise on Google Ads? If you have an ad spend budget of $300 to $500 a month you are a great candidate for Google Ads Express – a slimmed down easy to use version of Google Ads.
If your ad spend budget is $500 and up, the traditional high powered version of Google Ads will give better control over activity and boost website sales and leads.
The difference between Google Ads Express and Regular Google Ads is as follows.
Google Ads allows you to add your own keywords, multiple versions of ad text and run multiple campaigns and ad groups. Google Ads Express allows you to run one campaign and one ad group and Google selects the keywords that will show your ads.
Google Ads has many advanced features: conversion tracking, ad extensions like sitelinks and call extensions. Google Ads Express does not have those features.
Google Ads will allow for targeting to countries, states, cities, and multiple radius locations. Google Ads Express will only show ads locally and you cannot choose national or state level ad display.
Google Ads Express is the entry level relatively low budget tool to help users get exposed to Google Ads. It is not uncommon for a client to start out in Google Ads Express, like the results they get and migrate into the Standard Google Ads interface.
If you need help deciding where you should start, just complete our online form to schedule a free evaluation phone call.
With over 10 years of experience in professional management of AdWords account, I wanted to share tips on an often overlooked yet important item in conversion tracking – attribution.
First to see what I am talking,(in the old interface) about go to Tools > Conversions. Click one of the names of the conversions you have set up. Look to the bottom to Attribution Model. If you’ve done nothing it has defaulted to Last Click. Click Edit and change your conversion model to Position Based.
Position Based is my preferred attribution model. Over time you will be able to see keywords in your account that you might have pause that are actually a part of the conversion path.
The first click and last click will be weighted to 40% each and the middle clicks will split the remaining 20%. What happens is important for your keyword monitoring. You will start to see keywords that previously in the last click model may not be driving as many conversions as you had thought.
Your data drives your decisions in AdWords, put your data to work for you by changing your Attribution Model to the right one for you.
