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In an ideal world, digital marketers would be able to put their entire advertising budget to good use when using Google Ads. However, the sobering reality is inescapable.
As the biggest online advertising platform, Google Ads is getting more competitive, which means it is getting more expensive. Naturally, it takes some trial and error to figure out what will work for our business, which inevitably means a significant portion of our advertising budget goes to waste.
In pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, success comes down to two core tactics:
The problem many digital marketers now face is a rising cost-per-click (CPC), which can rapidly torpedo through your budget if you don’t take action.
How can we reduce CPC to a minimum and still maximize our conversion rates?
One strategy is to decrease the maximum cost per click bid. It’s easier said than done but lucky for you, PPCexpo can show you how to do it effectively so that you can even achieve success with a small marketing budget.
Before diving into the max CPC bid optimization tips, let’s first consider the three major influences that impact your cost-per-click.
This one may be a little obvious. If you habitually pay more for your clicks, you will drive the CPC up over time.
You must be aware that by decreasing your CPC, your Ad Rank will be affected. It’s quite likely that you will drop in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). The top spot is not always best, but you should aim for the top four positions. It’s a good idea to test how low Google will allow you to bid before they drop your Ad Rank.
A more competitive industry will be a big factor, as people will try to outbid each other for high-value keywords. Google Ads requires continuous testing and monitoring so that you can optimize your campaigns for better results. Otherwise, you’ll fall behind and pay more for your clicks.
So, what can we gain by managing our maximum CPC bids?
With lower CPC bids, you can stretch your budget further, which helps you get more clicks for the same amount of spend.
As aforementioned, your average position will likely fall. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. You may discover it allows your ad to attract more clicks at a lower cost, which works out better than the budget-draining cost for clicks at the top spot.
By taking the initiative to control your marketing budget, you can focus on improving the quality of your traffic, rather than simply paying for more clicks. Reducing the CPC will motivate you to work harder at attracting more relevant clicks.
Lowering your CPC bid is important to succeed, and it boosts the chances of making your CPC campaigns more profitable. This happens because more targeted traffic arrives, which means you can acquire cheaper leads.
With the benefits now clear, it’s time we showed you how to lower your max CPC bid. The tricky thing is finding the balance, as reducing your bids by too much can result in your ad falling to page 2, or perhaps failing to show up at all.
Here are seven steps to reducing your max CPC bid the right way.
Automatic bidding can quickly drain your budget by wasting money on irrelevant clicks. Switch to manual bidding to take control.
You should take a holistic look at your ad performance prior to making any changes. Approaching it with a narrow view will risk some poor judgments. Get the big picture so that you consider all areas of your revenue and targeting, which then enables you to make smarter decisions.
Plunging in with aggressive changes can be a disaster, especially if you start slashing bids on data that has already been optimized. Furthermore, if you change too many variables at the same time, it’ll be difficult to understand the data, which makes it hard to know which optimizations are working.
This is the most basic method of reducing your PPC advertising cost-per-click. The best place to start is with keywords that received a significant number of impressions but generated relatively few sales.
After you lower your bids, look at your reports to identify the top performing keywords. You can increase the bids on these search terms to maximize your ROI, as they will boost your ad position and drive more sales. An effective way of finding the best keywords in your campaign is by using the Pareto Principle.
A good rule of thumb for lowering your CPC bids is to set the maximum bid either at or close to the average CPC from the previous 30-day period. Doing this will limit the number of clicks your campaign receives by as much as 15% to 25%.
Ultimately, you are trying to optimize your CPC so you can save money and drive more traffic to your site. Check trend lines for a correlation between falling CPC values and increasing click rates.
The Keyword Bid Decrease Report from PPCexpo helps marketers identify keywords that you should consider reducing the max CPC bid on.
This report considers many factors in your campaign, including:
By using this report and its in-depth analytics, you can successful lower your max CPC bid with minimal impact on conversions.
Google Ads is easy to learn, but very hard to master. Amidst the vanity metrics of clicks, comments, likes, and shares, it’s easy for marketers to lose sight of the truly valuable measures of success.
By constantly testing and refining your max cost-per-click strategy, you can run a more profitable campaign, as the lower your CPC rate is, the cheaper your leads will be.
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