With manual bidding focussed on cost-per-click (CPC), automated bid strategies offer advertisers a range of objectives to bid and optimize towards beyond the click. 

The digital landscape has evolved rapidly over the last few years, with bid strategies representing just one of the ways in which advertisers can best respond to the plethora of user signals made apparent at the time of a keyword auction. Unlike manual bidding – which has always been managed by CPC bids – bid strategies allow the engine to bid on the advertiser’s behalf, with the aim of hitting pre-set targets, or staying within pre-set parameters. With a range of bid strategy objectives available, how can choosing ‘bottom of the funnel’ strategies help your business to grow?

Bid strategies are single-minded

One of the first things to remember when calibrating a bid strategy is that they are single-minded. For example, it is not possible to create a bid strategy with the objective ‘traffic and conversions’, as much as that may be how you would articulate your business objectives verbally. The reason for this is that the signals suggesting a user might click on your advert can be very different to those that may point towards a possible conversion. To this end, advertisers can be sure that a conversion-based ‘bottom of the funnel’ bidding strategy will be solely focussed on its target metric (unlike manual bidding, where the human tendency is often to optimize towards the end goal whilst attempting to maintain traffic volumes). 

The bottom of the funnel data is closer to business data

Each metric within your Ads account represents a different stage of the user journey, from impression share (visibility) to clicks (traffic), through to conversion volume, and ROAS. These metrics are often depicted as a funnel; some users will leave the funnel after simply seeing or clicking on your advert, whilst other users will remain within the funnel until conversion. 

When metrics at the top of the funnel are optimized, the remaining steps in the funnel are not specifically catered for, meaning the impressions you’re receiving may not ultimately end in conversions later down the line. If your bid strategy is optimizing towards clicks, a user’s likelihood of converting will not be considered at the point of auction, meaning the clicks you receive through a bid strategy are not necessarily higher quality or value than those that could be received as a result of manual bidding. 

If, however, an advertiser uses a Target CPA or Maximise Conversions bid strategy, a user’s propensity to convert is a more prominent consideration factor. For such objectives, the bid strategy will make ad-serving and bidding decisions based on the likelihood of a conversion occurring as a result of entering an auction. 

In order to allow the bid strategy to optimize to metrics closest to your business performance, ROAS or Conversion Value-based strategies will make decisions that achieve conversions not only within your target cost per acquisition but that are also commercially viable. For many advertisers, this relieves the pressure of optimizing activity in two parts – firstly attracting the traffic to your website, and then encouraging that user to make a purchase or inquiry (let alone ensuring that purchase or inquiry will lead to a positive return!). 

Parameters and targets

There are of course tweaks that can be made to bidding strategies, and whilst these options exist to provide guidance for the bid strategy, updating and amending these elements can also improve the performance of the bid strategy’s output.