Google Ads

Upping CPC Bids to Goog’s Recs: Yea? Nea?

Should You Increase Your CPC Bids to Google’s Recommendations?

SPICY NUGGET

If that’s your ‘Hail Mary’ move to get more leads, it will generally give disastrous results and you’ll have to revert the change.
— Adam A. Sene, CEO

We receive many questions from our PPC clients and from prospects asking us to help them understand their pay-per-click campaigns better. Here is one of them: “This campaign has the best ROI but many of the keywords are below first page bid. Shouldn’t we increase the CPC bids to match Google’s recommendations?”

PPC manager expressing surprise and doubt are raising CPC bids

So, obviously, the client is looking at Google’s recommendations (Spoiler alert: they want you to spend more) and suddenly has doubts as to the CPC bid level.

As it turns out in this particular case, the bid recommendations weren’t even that high. But in some industries, Google recommends bidding $40-$75 per click. Big G’s recommendations for attorneys and insurers reach into the hundreds of dollars… per click!

When you know that personal injury attorneys typically turn down 90% of the “injury cases” coming to them for a first free consultation, you do the math.

Attorney sweating profusely and wiping his forehead - vintage illustration

CPC and ROI

In all of our campaigns, we set our cost-per-click bids based on a number of factors, including cost/lead and ROI. If we increase bids and get worse or equal results, we lower them again.

When the overall ROI of a campaign is good, increasing CPC bids will almost always decrease ROI.

Let’s do some basic math:

Say a campaign has a 3.0x ROI, and we increase the bid from $4 to $12 (i.e. 300% increase) to follow Google’s recs. We may get more leads and even more sales. But unless the conversion rate increases, the ROI would drop from 3.0x to 1.0x because it’s not a linear increase in clicks, leads and sales.

In order to maintain a 3.0x ROI while increasing our bids by 300%, we would also have to get a 300% increase in conversion rates. This could very well prove to be impossible, especially if conversion rates are already really high.

Typically, increasing the CPC bid actually results in a decrease in the conversion rate, twice impacting your cost-per-lead.

pop-art Illustration of 2 ladies realizing higher CPC and lower conversion rate double impact the ROI

This ain’t just theory.

Many times, I have willy-nilly tried increasing CPC bids in high-ROI campaigns based on Google’s recommendations…

I generally do it out of desperation after hitting my head against a wall to get more leads. And I generally revert the changes a week or two later when the results prove to be disastrous.

So what do I do?

I manage bids by increasing the CPC bid based on the cost/conversion of the keyword, relative to the average cost/lead of that campaign.

- If the cost/conversion of the keyword is much lower than the rest of the campaign, I increase the CPCs proportionately — up to $0.25-$0.50 above Google’s bid recommendation.

- If the cost/conversion of a specific keyword is considerably higher than average, I lower the bid.

I compare the cost/conversion of the keyword to the average for that specific campaign: if a campaign generates a good ROI, I will tolerate a higher-than-average cost/conversion compared to the rest of the account.

pop art illustration of a businessman taking notes on a computer

Final comments

Keywords do very often show up on the first page, getting impressions and clicks, despite Google warning you “below first page bid”. “Impressions” and “impression share” metrics are your indicators for that.

If you are a client of ours, and you see a keyword getting no impressions in your campaign, it is almost always because of one or two factors: (1) the search volume is low; (2) at some point the keyword was spending money but generated no conversions. Then we cut the CPCs down into oblivion.

What Focus For Your Google Ads Campaign?

What’s the Biggest Question our Clients Have When Launching a Google Ads Campaign?

SPICY NUGGET

The focus of your concerns as far as digital advertising must depend on the stage of growth your business is at.
— Adam A. Sene, CEO

In this video, Adam is being interviewed by Howard Wolpoff, of DailyAdFriend.com, a digital marketing information platform focusing on interviewing pro marketers to share tips and information with business owners.

The interview focuses on the genesis of Eden Ads, and the most major question our clients have in mind when they prepare to launch a product or service offer on Google Ads.

The video starts with a short introduction of how Eden Ads was formed, and the professional experience of our CEO, Adam Sene, in the world of digital advertising.

TRANSCRIPT:

“Howard Wolpoff: Welcome back to Marketing Champions here on Daily Ad Brief. I’m Howard Wolpoff, your host. Again, we’re talking about marketing around the country with great marketers, and today we are in Clearwater, Florida. We’re talking to Adam Sene at Eden Ads. Adam, welcome to our conversation today.

Adam Sene: Thank you. Thank you for rolling me.

Howard Wolpoff: Well, we want to learn more about you and you obviously have been involved in marketing for a while. Why don’t you tell us how you got started?

Adam Sene: I’ve been in marketing for about 11 years. Prior to that, I actually was touring the country in a band and it was a rough time. It was in the middle of the recession and when things didn’t work out there, I took on a job for a company that was doing direct mail. They had an agency that was doing their online ads, and I saw an opportunity. If I learn this, I could probably take it over, and that’s where it sort of began. I’ve been doing then, ads for 11 years since. For much of that time, I did it as a freelancer for many different verticals, whether it was health, ecommerce, health products, supplements, etc, lead generation for B2B, and just ran the full gamut.

And then started this agency, Eden Ads, officially January 2020 last year. Some of our clients carried over from prior to that, but officially the start date was January 10, 2020, which I have to say it was not a great time to start a business because a few months later is when the pandemic started. So, we had to learn to pivot and deal with a major worldwide event, and I think emerged out the other end. It’s still going, but our coming out the other side, all the more strong for it, and that’s the history of today.

We specialize primarily on ads online, being Google Ads, Facebook ads, but we also in there, add additional services that are needed in order to supplement that like landing pages and websites, design, et cetera, and we do a splash of SEO in there as well. That’s who I am and what my company is and where it came from.

Howard Wolpoff: Well, life is definitely about timing and lots of people had interesting timing with, whether the start or different periods of their businesses, because of COVID. Just glad to see that you’re stronger as we are at this point of the process. When you’re working with a client and you’re getting started, what are the biggest questions they have about getting their message out there and why they’re there for you to be helping them?

Adam Sene: Well, it really is going to vary from client to client. You get people at all different stages in their business, whether they’re well established and far along and already successful, or whether they’re just a brand new startup and they just ordered some inventory for a product that they want to start a business around. It really depends on that stage of where they’re at in their business, the questions that they’re going to ask. Someone earlier along is going to be having more concern about their branding and their direction and what they should do. Whereas, further along guys, they’re going to have a good amount of that dialed in, and they’re going to be more interested in the more technical questions in terms of, where can we reduce wasted budget? How can we improve the ROAS on the budget that we have?

You’ll get guys who are at a stage where… This has happened a few times, you get a client that basically has gone through a handful of agencies and all they’re looking to do is scale. They’re spending X number of dollars a month. They’re happy with the returns that they’re get getting, but they’ve been trying to double it for a long period of time and gone through agencies that have only been able to increase the ad spend, but haven’t been able to increase the revenues proportionally alongside it. Like I said, different phases and really where they’re at is going to determine the type of questions they’ll have.

Howard Wolpoff: It shows just where different companies have been. Again, you mentioned the experience of different agencies and trying to find that right sweet spot for them with the revenue level that they’re going to be, and it’s good that you’ve had this varying experience throughout your career to guide them and put them in the right direction and get their businesses seeing the results. It’s great that you’re able to share this with us and we really appreciate you joining us today.

Adam Sene: Yeah, of course. My pleasure.

Howard Wolpoff: Thank you all for joining us as well. Adam really tells a great story through what he is sharing with us, through the information he has on his website, the type of business that he works with, and really the right way to get their message out there, and the results that they’re looking for. You can learn more on Daily Ad Brief, but go out and have a great rest of today, and we’ll see you next time on Marketing Champions.”

Direct link to the interview

There is way more to be done with your Facebook ads to ensure you get a good ROAS on any monies you spend on Facebook, but this will be the topic of other videos. Reach out to us at Eden Ads if your Amazon sales numbers aren’t up to snuff: we’ll have a conversation to understand where you are coming from, and how we can help you. Call us at (813) 940-5699.

In digital marketing, google adwords, online advertising

Why Your Business Should Use Google Ads

5 Reasons to Sow With Google Ads
(Get Ready to Reap)

SPICY NUGGET
Google Ads are one of the greatest marketing and advertising tools available to you today. (Yeah, we’re fans.)
— Adam A. Sene, CEO

A Google Ads account in the hands of a dedicated expert is a ferocious tool that will reap in customers from the online battlefield known as the competitive marketplace. In other words, it works very well if you know what you’re doing. “But, will Google Ads work for me?” you ask.

They will work for your business if it meets these criteria:

Your customers go online.
Keywords relevant to your business are searched for online.
Some of your competitors or companies with similar offerings use it.

If You’re Not using Google Ads, You’re Making a Big Mistake

There are a few reasons why your business, no matter the size or its current phase of growth, would benefit from Google AdWords.

1) AdWords gets much faster results than SEO (organic traffic takes much longer to build).

SEO and Google Ads are both search engine marketing strategies that generate traffic to your site. SEO is organic, Google Ads are paid; but hiring an SEO team (it’s one of our digital marketing services) to get you those organic rankings can be costly, and it is slow. Google Ad campaigns, expertly designed, will work much faster to get you top rankings in Google’s pages when people search for your services and products.

You can also monitor very accurately what you’re paying for and getting with Google Ads — you can’t track your results as precisely as that with SEO.

2) Surprising to many, Google Ads often converts to more leads/sales than organic traffic.

As reported by HubSpot:

a) The top 3 paid advertising spots get 46% of the clicks on the page. The top three links on a search engine results page (SERP) capture almost half of all traffic for that keyword. This data supports the PPC method as it involves buying ad space at the top of the SERPs.

b) Businesses make, on average, $3 in revenue for every $1.60 they spend on AdWords. PPC is a relatively inexpensive way to experiment, and there is a solid average ROI for investing in paid search ads.

c) PPC Ads can boost brand awareness by 80%.

d) Google’s algorithm updates don’t affect PPC. While not a stat per se, a big benefit of PPC is that it’s immune to Google’s changing ranking algorithms. In 2018, Google reported that they had updated their algorithm 3,234 times! If you’re using SEO, you have to adjust many factors on and outside of your website to match updated algorithm requirements.

e) 63% of people reported that they would click on a Google Ad. A high click-through rate (CTR) is the goal driving both PPC and SEO, and if the majority of surveyed consumers report that they would click into a paid search ad, it is a compelling statistic for investing in PPC.

f) 75% say it’s easier to find what they’re looking for from paid ads. The reason the top search results in Page 1 gets the vast majority of clicks is due to a combination of ease of use and finding what you are looking for. Bidding on target keywords through PPC accomplishes both needs: Paid Ads are easy to find at the top of the page, and they bring the right answer to the question of the searcher.

3) Google Ads are Scalable.

One of the most difficult things to do in marketing is to create lead sources that can scale — that means that you don’t have to 10X your ad spend to 10X your leads. Google Ads is very scalable. When you create a Google Ads campaign that converts with a good ROI, you don’t have to limit your ad spend for that campaign. You can increase your PPC ad spend… and your profits will increase in proportion to the higher budget.

4) Reconnect with past website visitors.

This is what’s known as remarketing (or retargeting). Google Ads provide the capability to reconnect with your past website visitors who didn’t convert on your site, abandon a shopping cart, peruse the site but don’t download anything, etc. With remarketing, your business can continue to show the visitor your offerings through targeted ads directed at them.

This is a great way to pinpoint the people who are interested in what you offer without the need for them to navigate your website — you target your Google Ad message precisely, and send the people who click on it to a specific landing page that gets your message across clearly (without anything else to distract them).

Remarketing can produce a very high ROI. These targeted ads provide a second chance to convert those ‘could-have-been’ customers into paying customers.

5) Increase your brand awareness.

In addition to increasing traffic and conversions on your website, Google Ads are a compelling way to tell people about your brand. It’s been reported that paid search ads lift top-of-mind awareness by an average of 6.6%.

Ready to Kick Off a Google Ads Campaign?

If you’re not yet convinced to try Google Ads, you should speak with a trained Google Ads Consultant on our team who can evaluate your website and offerings, answer your questions and help you determine an advertising strategy that’s right for you, your brand and the products and services you offer.

In digital marketing, Facebook Ads, Google Ads

WTH Are Ad Impressions, and Who Cares?

Spicy Nugget: Ad impressions – Use & limitations

“If your digital marketing agency is leading with ad impressions as their number one metric for your campaign’s success, run. As fast as you can. What this statistic tells you is how many times your ad was on the screen of a user/potential buyer. It shows that your ad is going out and saturating, hopefully multiple times over, your target audience.

“What it does NOT tell you is whether that user even noticed the ad, did anything with it, or if that user is even the right person to be targeting. We don’t use this metrics to determine an account’s success, but rather to diagnose the source of potential problems.

“Our advertising nerds—ahem, I mean experts—will compare Impressions to other metrics but never as a standalone measure of success. If your agency is reporting Impressions to you as a “results” metric, then you might have an expensive problem to fix.”

-Adam A. Sene, CEO

What are impressions, and who cares?

Impressions are, to quote Facebook exactly: “the number of times your ads were on a screen.” Google defines the word in much the same way, counting one impression each time your ad is shown on a Google search results page or as a display ad in the Google network. Since neither of those definitions really tell you anything about what impressions actually are, let’s dig in.

Ad impressions are a commonly monitored metric and usually make the “top 5 fave metrics” list for marketing pros. This is because they are the number one way to measure how many times your ads were exposed to your target audience, so obviously they matter to a certain extent.

How Are THEY Counted?

One impression is counted for each instance an ad appears on screen for the first time. The example Facebook gives is that if an ad appears on screen for a user, and then the user scrolls down and back up to the same ad, that counts as only 1 impression. If an ad appears on screen for someone 2 different times in a day, however, that would count as 2 impressions.

On Google, an impression is counted each time your ad is shown on a search result page or on another site in the Google Display network.

What’s the Difference Between Impressions and Reach?

Reach is defined as the number of people who were exposed to your ad campaign at least one time. Reach might seem super similar to impressions (because it is), but the main difference between the former and the latter is that impressions can include multiple views of the same ad by the same user.

Reach is essentially a PEOPLE metric, whereas impressions are VIEWS.

Get to the Point… Why Do AD Impressions Matter?

Impressions are a great metric for a number of reasons, not the least of which is brand awareness and recall-ability for your potential buyers. If you’re running a brand awareness campaign, this IS your key metric.

Have you ever seen an ad on Facebook or elsewhere for a brand or product you liked, and then when someone else mentioned that brand or product to you, you said, “Oh yeah, I know them… I saw them online somewhere”? Boom. Impressions.

Impressions are an awareness metric. They are eyeballs on your brand. This, loosely speaking, can translate to new clients, leads and more sales. Without impressions, you’re literally living in a cave where nobody sees you or knows about the amazing services you offer.

Impressions tell you that your ads are being seen by your target audience, but just on their own, they definitely don’t determine the success of your campaign. You have to keep one eye on Impressions while keeping another eye on each of your other metrics like Spend, Click-Through-Rate (CTR), your Leads, Cost Per Click and Cost Per Lead. (That’s at least 5 more eyes—yikes!)

A Lesson From Nerds: Ignore Data if You Like Wasting Money

A little known secret about ad experts is we’re actually complete nerds. You might think splashy creatives and amazing taglines are what get the job done, but we’re here to tell ya—it’s the numbers and the data. Our super nerds analyze, refine and optimize campaigns based on the data we gain from metrics, so that campaigns perform beyond our clients’ expectations. The honest truth is that our Design Team just does a heck of a job making math look sexy.

For example, if we see a campaign getting thousands of Impressions per day for months and months, yet CTR and Leads are still in the toilet, chances are the audience isn’t refined enough and you need to tighten things up.

Do I Need an Agency to Run My Ads on Facebook and Google?

Business owners hire professionals to handle ad campaigns because agencies have more eyeballs than business owners. Plain and simple.

Can you run your own ad campaigns? Of course you can! We even created this guide to getting Facebook Ads approved because we believe in you! But you’d better be prepared to lose some money along the way as you learn the ropes. Ads without precise optimization, targeting and data analysis can be quite a money pit.

Want some help? We’re here, and we give out free advice all the time. Reach out!

Upping CPC Bids to Goog’s Recs: Yea? Nea?