With a lot of changes in automation, many marketers have swiftly transitioned to fully automated bidding in PPC. However, there is a debate about whether manual bidding could be still useful for certain campaign objectives.
Google has been actively advocating for automation, promoting features like Dynamic Search Ads, Responsive Search Ads, and Performance Max, in addition to bid strategies. Successful testing of these new features and smart bidding has made the shift to automation highly compelling.
While there are multiple smart bid strategies available in Google Ads, such as Target impression share, Target cost per action (CPA), and Maximise conversions, it’s essential to choose the best bid strategy based on specific objectives, which can save you a lot of money.
During Google Ads account audits i’m often surprised how much of the performance is solely driven from brand traffic, which is the easiest way for Google to convince their platform works. However, when a client wants to scale their brand efficiently it can’t be done with spending the majority significant amounts on branded. When it comes to automated bid strategies this might not be the best choice for Search ads on your brandname. Top visibility for pure brand terms remains still important for protecting the brand image, the side effect of automated bid strategies are unnecessarily inflated CPC’s resulting in high CPA’s and budget waste.
It’s wise to setup an experiment in your account where you A/B test 50%/50% manual CPC against target CPA or Target Impression share. Let the test run for at least 30 days and see how manual bidding will lower your CPC’s resulting in much lower CPA’s without necessarily resulting in a significant decrease of conversions or impression share.
While automation offers significant benefits, manual bidding will still be my preferred bidding strategy when it comes to maintaining brand visibility and optimizing efficiency.