Setting and Managing AdWords Bids

Setting AdWords Bids

The bid you set is up to you. Your maximum CPC or CPM bid represents the highest amount that you're willing to pay per click or thousand impressions, respectively, on your ad. You can set a bid at the ad group level, or for individual keywords and placements. If you don't specify a maximum CPC or CPM bid for a given keyword or placement, the ad group maximum CPC or CPM bid will automatically apply.

 If you have both keyword-level and placement-level bids within an ad group, and an ad shows on one of the placements for which you've set a bid, the placement bid applies.

Your maximum CPC bid must be at least US$0.01. Your maximum CPM bid must be at least US$0.25.

When setting your CPC or CPM bid, consider the following:

• The value of a click. How much is a visitor to your website worth? How likely is it that a click will turn into a conversion (sale, signup, etc.)? If a click has a high value to you, then you might want to set a high bid. If it has a low value, lower the bid. You can get conversion statistics by setting up conversion tracking or by using Google Analytics. Also, keep in mind that higher bids can increase click volume, but they can also result in more expensive clicks. Lower bids can decrease your volume but also get cheaper clicks. Consider this tradeoff between price and volume when you're setting your bids.

• Your daily budget. Be sure that your daily budget is higher than your CPC or CPM bid. Otherwise, your ad won't show.

Tools for Managing AdWords Bids

In addition to the various bidding options, AdWords also offers the tools listed below.

Tip: Only use these tools if you have enough campaign performance statistics to help you make informed decisions about how to use the tools.

Ad scheduling: a tool for adjusting your bids for different times of day or days of the week.

Ad scheduling lets you control the days and times your AdWords campaigns appear. In an advanced mode it also lets you set different bid multipliers for different times of the day and the week. The bid multiplier (10% to 1000% of the original CPC) affects all ads in the campaign, including ads with separate search and Display Network bids. When the multiplier time period is over, your campaign will revert to your normal campaign bids. Ad scheduling is more effective than manual operations of the same type - it's fully automated and you don't experience any delays as you might with manual status changes and bid adjustments. You may create up to six time periods per day, each with its own bid multiplier entry.

Ad scheduling is based on account time zone. Ads will appear during the hours shown in your account, not in the time zone of the regions you have targeted. Ad scheduling doesn't change your daily budget. Your overall budget remains the same whether or not you enable ad scheduling.

Demographic bidding: a tool for targeting your ads to specific groups of customers visiting certain sites in the Google Display Network.

Many AdWords users want their ads to be seen especially by users of a certain demographic group: for instance, by women, or by people between the ages of 35 and 44, or even by women between the ages of 35 and 44. If you'd like a particular demographic group to see your ad when it appears on certain Display Network sites, you can help make that happen by boosting your bid whenever your ad is eligible to be shown to a member of your preferred group. This is done with the Bid + % system found on the demographic bidding page of your campaign.

Position preference: a tool for specifying in which positions you'd like your ads to appear.

Position preference is a bidding feature that gives sophisticated advertisers more control over the positioning of their ads. It helps some advertisers better promote their brands or earn a higher return on investment (ROI). In particular:

• Direct-response advertisers can target their most cost-effective ad rankings.
• Brand advertisers can make sure their ads run only in the most visible positions.

Position preference helps you achieve your desired ad position in two ways. First, it attempts to show your ad only when the Ad Rank (maximum CPC x Quality Score) has placed the ad in the positions you selected. Second, if the Ad Rank places the ad in a higher spot, position preference will discount your maximum CPC bid to move the ad into your desired range.