Google Display Network Bidding: Essential Knowledge to Pay for Conversion Bid Strategy

Advertising is not what it once was. Times are changing.

The initial concept of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is pretty self-explanatory – you pay for the clicks on your ad. However, as time moves on and marketing technology gets more sophisticated, paying for clicks no longer appears to be the best way forward.

Digital marketers are always trying to improve their campaigns, and the experts at Google continue to make the search engine and advertising platform more intelligent and better optimized with every year that passes.

Now it seems that if we set up our campaigns to pay for conversion, rather than for clicks, we can align our efforts with the capabilities of Google.

And that makes for much greater success on the Display Network. Let’s see how.

How Google is Getting Smarter

PPC advertising is taking a backseat now, as businesses move towards a more result-oriented digital marketing world. In fact, it can be added to the long list of acronyms in this sphere – we can call it result-oriented digital marketing (RODM).

So, just what is Google doing to promote RODM?

Smart Bidding Strategies

Giving the Google algorithm control of your ads business may take a bit of getting used to, but it’s not a bad move.

By using machine learning techniques, Google can devise automated bidding strategies that optimize your budget for the best possible return on investment (ROI). Such strategies include:

• Enhanced CPC bidding
• Maximize conversions
• Target CPA
• Target ROAS
• Maximize clicks
• Target impressions share
• Target search page location
• Target outranking share
• Cost per thousand viewable impressions

While you set your bidding on autopilot, you can spend time on other more pressing tasks.

Goal-Based Campaigns

One of the recent changes to Google is the ability to define your goals when you are creating a new campaign. Once this is set, the platform will suggest certain features and tips to help you attain your objective.

Artificial Intelligence is on the rise in Ads

As artificial intelligence assumes a bigger role in Google Ads, marketers can take advantage of automated features such as responsive ads and dynamic keywords insertion.

In doing so, they can focus on their site content and leave Google in charge of their advertising. The better your website is, the more fuel Google will have to create engaging, high-quality ads with.

More Optimization Tools

Google understands the importance of a business website, and recent enhancements reflect that. You can use tools to make your site more mobile-friendly and to increase page speed.

Pay for Conversion is Another Step Towards Machine-Led Advertising

By making the switch to pay for conversion, you only need to pay whenever your leads actually convert on your app or website.

As such, there is greater emphasis on data now, which makes machine learning and AI more important than before. Without proper implementation and enough data, you may just lose a lot of money.

Understand Cost per Acquisition

In a Google search campaign, you can pay for conversion by setting your target cost per acquisition, which is located in the Bidding section of your campaign settings.

Let’s say your target CPA is $20, and you drove 50 conversions in one month. You’ll pay exactly $1,000, with an actual CPA of $20. You’ll pay nothing for clicks or impressions.

Understand Budgeting

Typically, the number of conversions you get in a single day will vary drastically from the number of clicks. Because of this, there are more flexible budgeting rules in place for pay for conversion in Google.

Your daily budget may soon be exhausted, possibly two-fold or more. But, if you have smart bidding in place, your campaign spending will be better optimized. As a result, your daily budget will be better managed.

Same Algorithm, Different Networks

It may be a different payment method, but the same algorithm is used with pay for conversions bidding. Google advises that “you’ll never pay above your target cost per action”, so the platform will aim to maximize your conversions without busting your set threshold.

Don’t Forget to Be Creative

It doesn’t hurt to get into the habit of checking your ads for low-performing aspects and replacing them where needed. Whether it’s the images, headlines or descriptions, a regular freshen up will help you maintain ad performance levels. Don’t let anything go stale!

Exclusions on Pay for Conversions Advertising

At present, pay for conversions will not work for certain conversions, including:

• Conversions imported from Calls
• Conversions imported from SalesForce
• Cross-device conversions
• Shared budgets
• Offline conversion types such as Import from Clicks and Store Visits

Check if You Are Eligible

Pay for conversion isn’t open to just anyone – you must have over 100 conversions in the past 30 days before you’re eligible. If you’re dealing with ineligibility to pay for conversions, you’ll need to up your game first.

Just keep in mind, that in 90% of cases, the time between the initial click and the conversion must be less than 7 days. You can check lag time data for conversions in the Google Ads user interface. Segment that data from the past 30 days by selecting Conversions > Days to conversion.

You may encounter an error message that states, “Your account is ineligible to pay for conversions.”

In this case, other factors such as the API may be rendering your account ineligible. Eligibility is refreshed on a daily basis, so you may be able to access it the following day. Otherwise, you may have some success by contacting customer support at Google Ads.

Is this the End for PPC?

Before you can get started with pay for conversion in Google, you need to show that you can generate a decent conversion rate. Once you’re in, advertising can get a whole lot easier, and potentially cheaper.

With the rise of machine learning tools to optimize your campaigns, you can automate more in Google Ads in 2020, which frees you up to work on your website.

Pay for conversion may cause a dip for PPC advertising, but it could be the beginning of vastly improved ROI for advertisers.