But what is digital PR and how can it impact your business? We’ve build a guide to help you learn about what it is and some of the top agencies that offer digital PR services.

What Is Digital PR?

Digital PR is the marketing practice of building links to your site by getting coverage from large media outlets. Digital PR involves creating newsworthy content that journalists want to cover with the goal of driving links to your site at scale and improving your overall SEO.

Creating digital PR campaigns is an extremely time intensive process that requires teams to work across analytics, creative, development, media relations and more. Oftentimes, digital PR agencies have some of the best infrastructure in order to create end to end digital PR campaigns.

For this reason, we’ve accumulated a list of the best digital PR agencies:

The Best Digital PR Agencies

The best digital PR agencies are:

1. Go Fish Digital
2. REQ
3. Siege Media
4. Rise At Seven
5. Ignite Visibility
6. Fractl
7. JBH

You can learn more about each digital PR agency below and what type of campaigns and industries they excel in.

1. Go Fish Digital

Best For: Best Overall

Go Fish Digital has one of the best track records of driving premium backlinks in the SEO industry. Our team provides end to end digital PR services that cover everything from ideation, data research and analysis, graphic design, outreach and more. Through utilizing consistent campaign formats such as surveys, data studies, illustrations and interactive campaigns, we’re able to consistently create high quality campaigns that earn links that matter from media sites.

Throughout our 15+ years of experience, our team has earned links from sites such as The New York Times, CNN, Business Insider, The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated and many more. Our team seeks to understand what types of articles tend to perform well in terms of social shares, views, upvotes and more. This data helps inform a digital PR strategy that’s more likely to earn links for your business.

2. REQ

Best For: Traditional PR & Media Relations

REQ is a digital marketing agency based out of Washington DC that has a strong traditional PR background. They work with brands across sectors such as B2B, B2C and technology to advise on their traditional and digital PR strategies. All in all, they work across a multitude of services such as branding, media relations, messaging and creative content.

What’s unique about REQ is that their deep media background gives them an edge in terms of the outreach portion of digital PR. With a deep rolodex of media contacts, this enables them to have an extremely powerful distribution network for digital PR campaigns.

3. Siege Media

Best For: Evergreen Digital PR

Over the years, Siege Media has established themselves as one of the best digital PR companies for SaaS and FinTech companies. With over 15 years of experience and 7,500 media contacts, Siege Media specializes in creative campaign ideation, creation and promotion. Their impressive portfolio includes working with companies such as Hippo, The Zebra, Vena Solutions and more.

One of Siege’s specialities is going beyond digital PR campaigns that have a short shelf life. They focus on creating evergreen content that can earn links in the short term but also generate sustainable organic traffic in the long term. This includes examples such as a “Car Affordability Calculator” tool or their “3 Reasons Credit Scores Are Different” analysis. These campaigns are built for links and then optimized for mapped queries for long term growth success.

4. Rise at Seven

Best For: Newsjacking & Social

Rise at Seven has consistently established themselves as one of the UK’s best digital PR agencies. Throughout their years in business, they’ve worked with many impressive retail brands including Pretty Little Thing, Lounge Underwear and more.

Rise at Seven really specializes in their ability to use reactive PR and newsjacking to leverage digital PR success. They’ve been one of the foremost pioneers in the industry of using the social ecosystem to get real-time data on what’s trending and then create digital PR campaigns on the backs of those trends. For example, they worked across both the search and social ecosystems to improve the visibility of prettyLittleThing’s trending products.

5. Ignite Visibility

Best For: Local Businesses

Ignite Visibility is one of the most impressive digital PR agencies, especially for the small business sector. Ignite Visibility is one of the most esteemed SEO and digital PR agencies when working with companies such as home services, franchises, dental, automotive, insurance and more.

Ignite Visibility works across holistic digital PR services. This involves creating a strategy, creating content, performing media outreach, managing influencers and more. They also work to ensure that their digital PR campaign work across different marketing channels such as email, paid search, social media and more. This ensures that their digital PR campaigns aren’t limited to a single channel but are built to succeed across your content distribution network.

6. Fractl

Best For: Strategic Outreach

Fractl is an agency based out of Delray Beach, Florida that focuses on a variety of marketing strategies such organic growth, content development, technical SEO and digital PR. Fractl specializes in creating digital PR campaigns for companies such as McAfee, Alcohol.org, Fanatics and more.

Fractl separates themselves by placing a large emphasis on the outreach they’re able to perform for their clients. When they perform outreach to their media contacts, they focus on quality over scale by ensuring that every single pitch is targeted to their audience. By establishing personal connections with media outlets, they’re able build out media relationships that make future digital PR outreach even easier. On their site, they even have several testimonials from journalists who gave great feedback on their ability to pitch and create deep relationships.

7. JBH

Best For: UK Digital PR

JBH is a digital PR agency that’s based out of Manchester, England. They offer a variety of different strategies including data-led campaigns, newsjacking, proactive PR, PR thought leadership and more.

JBH has an extremely deep rolodex of clients from the UK. This includes companies such as Money.co.uk, Select Car Leasing & Radar Healthcare. As a result, they’ve been able to establish relationships at UK-specific media outlets such as BBC, Metro, The Manc and more. If part of your strategy involves creating campaigns targeting sites in these locations, JBH is a great choice.

How To Choose A Digital PR Agency

When it comes to choosing a digital PR agency, there are several factors to consider. While this will be different company to company, here are some things to consider when selecting an agency to partner with:

Industry Experience

You’ll want to generally work with digital PR services that have experience in your industry. The type of content that’s successful in tech differs greatly from what works in travel. You’ll want an agency that understands the nuances of different verticals, types of content that works, existing media contacts and more. Strong industry experience means that your campaigns will hit the ground runnings.

Past Earned Coverage

You’ll also want to see what media outlets the digital PR agency has gotten links for in the past. Do they routinely target high Domain Authority sites or are they not able to get links from desired publications? If the agency has a track record of getting strong backlinks, that’s a very good sign.

Ability To Adhere To Brand Guidelines

Digital PR campaigns need to run through multiple teams, including the brand team. You’ll want to be sure that your campaigns match the style, tone and personality of your brand. A great digital PR agency will not only come up with great campaign ideas but ensure that they make sense when it put in the context of your company.

Previous Case Studies

Definitely ask about a digital PR agency’s previous case studies. You’ll be able to see the types of industries they’ve worked in, they’re approach to digital PR, strategies they use to ideate content, outreach methods and more. This will give you a much clearer understanding of how the process works, what makes the agency unique and if the strategy aligns with yours in terms of coverage.

Conclusion

Link building may be tougher than ever, but with the right strategies and partnerships, it’s still possible to achieve remarkable results. By leveraging the expertise of top digital PR agencies like the ones on this list, businesses can navigate the complexities of modern link-building and secure valuable backlinks that enhance their SEO performance. These agencies bring unique strengths and innovative approaches to the table, ensuring that your brand gains the media coverage and search visibility it deserves.

The 7 Best Digital PR Agencies Of 2024 is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Related Content:

• Paid Media Advertising Services
• Google Ads Management Services
• Performance Max Agency
• SEM Agency

If you’re not familiar with what a product feed is or how it works, don’t worry! In this article we’ll explain everything you need to know about creating your own Google Merchant Center product feed so that it can be used by Google Search and Shopping platforms through Google Ads. You can also use the same product feed for Bing Merchant Center. 

What Is A Merchant Center Product Feed?

To put it simply a product feed is a file that contains information about your products. It is the most important file that you can compile if you are running an e-commerce business. The quality of your feed will determine the success of your Shopping or Performance Max campaigns and can make or break a business. So, without further ado, let’s get into what is a product feed a little deeper. 

Google Merchant Center Product Feed is a tool that allows you to upload your product data to Google, so it can be used in Performance Max and Shopping ads.

You have three options for uploading products:

1. Automated Feeds: Use third-party apps like Google Channel or Simprosys Google Shopping Feed to create bulk uploads of thousands of items in just minutes!
2. Manual Feeds: Upload them using spreadsheets (like Excel or Google Sheets).
3. Individual Upload: Upload individual products one at a time.

As mentioned above, a product feed contains all of the information about your products. Whether you have one or millions of products, you will have to generate a product feed. For Google Merchant Center, there are fields that are required in order for your products to get accepted while others are optional. 

Some of the required attributes are:

• Title: You want to make sure your titles are as clear as possible while including the keywords that you want your products to show up for.
• Price: The price you submit to Google must be the same as you show on your website, otherwise your products will not be accepted.
• ID: Even though it is required, it can be anything you want. 
• Description: Just like the title, include as much information about your product as possible, because Google will show your products for keywords by reading your description.
• Link: The URL of your product page
• Image link: At least one image link is required. 
• Availability: You must tell Google whether the product is in stock or out of stock.
• GTIN (aka UPC or barcode): Required for most products. If your product is a custom product, you can just submit an MPN and Brand name. 
• MPN: Only required if your product does not have GTIN.
• Condition: Required for used or refurbished products.

Optional & Required Attributes For Merchant Center Product Feeds

Depending on the category that your products fall into, some other attributes may become a requirement, but the previously mentioned fields are required for every listing. For example, if you sell t-shirts, watches, shoes, etc. you will be required to provide: size, gender, color, and age group. If you are a car dealership, you will be required to provide a VIN number and so on. 

It’s definitely important to provide attributes that are optional. When running Google Shopping / Performance Max campaigns, Google will target certain keywords for you. How does Google know which keywords to show your products for? By looking at the title, description, and all the other attributes that you have submitted via product feeds. The more detailed your product feed is, the better your chances of showing up for searches that pertain for what you have to offer. That means, you will get better quality traffic that has a higher chance of converting into a customer. 

Let’s imagine that there is a search term by a potential customer for “small blue t-shirt for women” Your product may appear in Google’s Shopping results if you have submitted all the required and optional attributes for your t-shirt even if your bid is lower than a store that has not provided every detail on their product feed. 

When providing shopping feeds, it’s important to remember: 

• Google requires certain attributes in order to improve the experiences for both consumers and advertisers
• GTIN’s can be incredibly useful information if your prices are lower than your competition.
• Product category is another overlooked attribute that can lower your CPA
• Provide additional information about your products that may be helpful for customers or Google Shopping

Now that we have gone over what is required and optional for a product feed, let’s look into how to actually create a product feed.

How to Create a Google Merchant Center Product Feed

There are multiple ways you can create your product feeds in Google Merchant Center, but the three main avenues that most merchants take in creating their feed are the Content API, adding individual products, and manual feeds. Each method of sending your products is just as valid as any other, but what is the best way for you will determine the amount of products you have. 

If you are a single product store, then adding individually on Google Merchant Center may be the best option for you. However, if you have more than 10 products, then we would recommend going with automated or manual feeds. Let’s dive into the differences.

Automated Google Merchant Center Product Feeds

The Content API is a RESTful web service that allows you to upload, manage and retrieve content from your Google Merchant Center account. It can be used by any application that needs to access product data in order to provide information about products on their own websites or apps. The Content API lets you manage your product data programmatically. 

The Content API allows you to:

• Upload product data in bulk as CSV files using the POST /content endpoint;
• Retrieve existing product data using GET requests;
• Update existing product listings using PUT requests;

To put it simply, Content API is a system that communicates directly with Google Merchant Center and continuously updates product attributes as they change in your store. 

For example, if you sell out of a certain product, Content API would update the availability for that product to “out of stock” and change it back to “in stock,” once your stock status updates within your store. You would not have to go in and make changes to your products individually every time something changes. The Content API makes the process of your products showing up in Shopping tabs of Google as painless as possible. 

Upload products with third-party apps

You can also import products from Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce and other eCommerce platforms. The bulk uploader tool is a great way to add large batches of product information at once. You can also use it to update existing products that already have Merchant Center product data.

If you’re looking for more control over how each item in your feed looks on Google Shopping:

• Upload individual items manually using one of the methods above (or another method). Then go back into those products in Merchant Center and edit their attributes as needed before publishing them on Shopping Search Ads & Product Listing Ads or Merchant Center feeds (depending on what type of data you want).
• Another method of updating attributes of products you already have is to submit supplemental feeds. 

Shopify’s Google Channel

Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms and there are third-party tools you can use to manage your feed. Shopify has a free “Google Channel” app that will connect your store to Google Merchant Center. There are also paid apps that have their own benefits, but if you don’t have the budget for additional subscriptions, then you might want to look at free solutions offered for your platform. 

Shopify’s Google Channel App

While Shopify’s app store has many apps that allow you to connect your store to Google Merchant Center, Google Channel is the most popular solution among merchants. It is easy to install and set up. 

Once installed, you can just follow the setup instructions and your products will be sent using the Content API within 24 hours. One thing to note, Google Channel will not show up under your apps section in your Shopify admin, it will be accessible through the “Sales channels” button. 

Manual Feeds

When it comes to manual feeds, there are multiple ways to create manual feeds, such as XML & TXT files, and Google Sheets. 

Here’s an example of lines of code required to create an XML file:

In our opinion, why go through the difficulty of creating an XML file when you can just create a Google Sheet within Google Merchant Center and edit it just as easily. You can also upload your products to Google Merchant Center with a spreadsheet. 

Google Merchant Center Product Feeds Via Google Sheets

You can use Google Sheets to create, edit, and share spreadsheets. Of course, you can share Google Sheets with other people so that you don’t have to enter data into the same spreadsheet every time you want to collaborate on something together. This is great for large teams or businesses where there are multiple employees working on various aspects of a project at once (e.g., sales team members creating product pages).

The main reason for using spreadsheets is that they’re easier than uploading individual product listings one by one through the interface or API. You don’t have to worry about getting details like title, description, and price exactly right every time–it’s just a matter of getting all those fields filled in eventually! 

Also: spreadsheets are more flexible than other tools because they allow variation in data format (e.g., commas vs semicolons), which means they’ll work with any product feed you create without needing any changes made beforehand. With Google Sheets, it’s easy to create a spreadsheet with all your products listed on one sheet for easy viewing by anyone who needs access–even if they don’t have Excel!

Upload products individually

When you import products individually, you can use the Google Merchant Center product feed tool to upload each product. Again, if you have more than 10 products, then we would recommend going with automated or manual feeds.

To do this:

1. Sign into your account at https://www.merchants.google.com (or create one if you haven’t yet).
2. Click Products > All Products > Add Products.
3. You will have two options: Add new product or Add catalog product.
4. For new products, you will enter all the details for your product
5. For catalog products, you will provide the UPC code and Google will find most of the details for you.
6. Once you fill in all the required fields, click “Save” and you are all done.

Conclusion

We hope that this article has helped you understand the importance of product feeds and how they can be a factor in your digital visibility. We also hope that this article has helped you understand the benefits of using Google Sheets, individual products, and Content API for your Merchant Center product uploads. As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, it’s important to have a Google Merchant Center account in order to run Shopping Ads so that you don’t miss any opportunities to drive revenue from your online store. Product feeds are the most important part of your GMC account and creating a quality feed with every product detail is critical. Remember, a quality product feed means a better return on your ad spend and higher profits for your business. 

How To Create Data Feeds In Google Merchant Center is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

We have been alerted to fraudulent activities where individuals primarily in Europe and Asia are being contacted by individuals that do not represent Go Fish Digital using WhatsApp. These impersonators are attempting to fraudulently obtain money and personal information from their targets. Know that the impersonators do not represent Go Fish Digital and are not connected with us in any way and we will never request payment of any kind from a  job candidate.

We recommend that if you’re contacted by someone claiming to be from Go Fish Digital on WhatsApp, do not respond or share any personal information.

Go Fish Digital will never use the following applications for recruitment or communication purposes: 

• WhatsApp
• Telegram 
• Facebook Messenger
• Google Messages
• Signal
• WeChat

We also recommend that you use WhatsApp’s reporting feature to report the impersonator.

For specific instructions on reporting cybercrimes in your country, please refer to your local police website or national cybercrime authorities.

Security Alert: Do Not Respond To WhatsApp Messages From “Go Fish Digital” is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

By leveraging data from your website and other Google properties, you can create personalized campaigns that reach the right people at the right time.

In this article, we will cover all the essential information about Performance Max audience signals so that you set your campaign up for success!

Related Articles:

• Performance Max Agency
• Paid Media Advertising Services
• Google Ads Management Services
• SEM Agency

What Are Performance Max Audience Signals?

Performance Max is a powerful tool that automates campaigns by utilizing machine learning to optimize bids and placements for optimal performance.

One of its major advantages is the Audience Signals feature, which enables advertisers to target particular audiences based on their interests and behaviors.

Audience Signals provide advertisers with an excellent opportunity to target users who are more likely to be interested in their products or services. By using this feature, marketing managers can inform Google about the potential customers of their business, helping Google’s machine learning to understand more about the business. Alternatively, Performance Max can analyze user behavior across multiple signals, including search history, location, and device type, to identify audiences that are most likely to convert and show them relevant ads.

To create a profile of potential customers with a high probability of interest in the product or service, it’s best to include multiple indicators within Audience Signals to increase the chances of them seeing your ads.

For instance, an advertiser selling running shoes can use Audience Signals to target users who have recently searched for running gear, live in a city with many runners, and use mobile devices. This allows the advertiser to reach a specific audience with relevant ads, increasing the chances of conversion and maximizing ROI.

Audience Signals are dynamic and can adapt to changing user behavior over time.

As machine learning starts to work, Performance Max can adjust targeting to focus on the most successful signals as users interact with ads, ensuring that the ads always reach the most relevant audience. However, it’s important to note that Google’s algorithm will need some time to learn about your business, resulting in wasted resources if Audience Signals are not utilized.

Therefore, it’s best to research your target audience before relying on AI technology to get the most out of the Audience Signals feature. By knowing your customer, you can use custom audience segments, demographics, and other indicators to tell Google who to focus on. When building a profile of a potential customer, the sky’s the limit, and your only limitation is your imagination.

Customer Match Lists Audience Signals

Targeting the right audience is crucial for the success of your campaigns.

According to some marketers, it can cost up to 5 times more to acquire new customers than to sell to existing ones.

With Performance Max, you have the option to utilize customer match lists, which will allow you to create targeted ads based on previous interactions with your brand, thus reducing the CPA for your campaign.

For instance, you can focus on people who have previously purchased from your website or subscribed to your newsletter.

By creating ads that are more likely to convert, you increase your chances of reaching the right audience and maintaining a consistent brand message across all channels. Performance Max lets you run campaigns on various networks, such as Google Search, YouTube, and the Google Display Network, enabling you to expand your reach and potentially increase conversion rates.

Suppose you display your ads within YouTube, Gmail, and Google’s partner websites to visitors who added products to their cart but later abandoned them without completing the purchase. In that case, you can remind them to finalize the purchase, ultimately improving your business’s profitability.

One of the significant advantages of Performance Max is its real-time ad campaign optimization.

To get started with Performance Max customer match lists, you need to upload your customer data to Google Ads. By using uploaded customer data, Google’s machine learning algorithms will find the best matches for your ads.

These audiences will be similar to the ones who have already converted on your website, but not necessarily the same customers. Performance Max will adjust your campaigns as your customer data changes, ensuring that you always reach the audience with the highest conversion potential. Utilizing customer match lists are definitely dependent on your current strategy but are worth looking into if you’re open to testing.

Custom Segments Audience Signals

In addition to customer match lists, Performance Max also enables you to target specific customer segments based on their behavior and interests. Identifying these segments and tailoring your messaging and ad placements can increase engagement and improve conversion rates.

According to Google, “custom segments help you reach your ideal audience by entering relevant keywords, URLs, and apps,” which can be immensely beneficial when used correctly.

The best part about custom segments is that you can add websites and apps that you think your customers could visit, and those visitors will be targeted for your products and services, making this feature a potent tool.

To create custom segments, your primary task will be to list keywords and find relevant websites and apps that relate to your products and services.

For instance, if you have an iPhone accessories business, you can add apple.com, cases.com, and Otterbox to your custom segments to attract visitors who are most likely interested in what you offer.

Interests and Detailed Demographics

Targeting the audience with detailed demographics and interests is an effective way to ensure that your ads reach the right people.

By targeting specific demographics such as age, gender, location, and interests, you can optimize your ad performance and increase your return on investment. Typically, effective targeting involves at least four demographic attributes.

Interests are another crucial factor to consider when targeting potential customers. By analyzing user data, you can identify the interests of your target audience and tailor your ads to their preferences. This approach can significantly improve the effectiveness of your campaigns and increase the chances of conversion.

Detailed demographics targeting can help you reach specific segments of your audience. For instance, targeting specific age groups, genders, or locations can optimize your ad performance.

Let’s take the example of an Otterbox Defender case for the iPhone 14 Pro Max to understand proper target audience analysis better: Their target audience is “Males, 25-34, New York, construction workers.”

Gender and age may also be essential factors in optimized targeting. In our case, Defender cases are more targeted toward males between 25 and 34. Utilizing age can help further narrow down to the correct audience. .

Depending on your campaign goals and products, location targeting may play a critical role in targeting because you may want to focus on specific countries or states. It is better to have multiple campaigns tailored to specific groups rather than general audience signals.

Occupations or interests are equally important in this target audience analysis. In our analysis, construction workers are more likely to purchase Otterbox Defender cases because of their bulky size, which offers greater phone protection.

By understanding the needs and preferences of your target audience, you can create ads that resonate with them and drive conversions. A detailed target audience analysis helps you understand the importance of detailed demographics and interest targeting.

Continuously analyzing and refining your targeting strategy is key to success. Use performance data to determine what works and what doesn’t, and adjust your targeting accordingly. By doing so, you can maximize your ad performance and reach your target audience effectively.

Audience Insights Report

Google Performance Max now offers Audience Insights, a report that provides valuable information about your customers and their interests.

The Audience Insights report collects data on demographics such as age, gender, location, and interests from visitors to your website and those who viewed and converted from your ads. This data is crucial in improving your campaigns or planning for future ones!

Another feature of the Audience Insights report is that it shows how your audience interacts with your ads. You can see how many clicks, impressions, index, and conversions your ads generate and which ad formats and placements perform best. This information can help you make data-driven decisions about where to allocate your advertising budget and which ad formats to prioritize.

Audience Insights is a powerful tool that you should explore, and you will find data there that will be extremely helpful.

For example, the screenshot below shows that an account selling hardware attracts people in the market for “lawn mowers, kitchen and bathroom cabinets, garden sheds, etc.”

Besides providing insights into your existing audience, the Audience Insights Report can help you identify new potential customers. By analyzing the interests and behaviors of your current audience, you can create lookalike audiences that are more likely to engage with your ads and convert into customers.

Overall, the Audience Insights Report is an excellent resource for gaining a better understanding of your audience and maximizing the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns.

Testing Performance Max Audience Signals

You have done all your research, know who your potential customer is, built your audience, and are ready to start advertising to sell. But how do you know if Performance Max Audiences is working for you? That’s where testing comes in. By testing different audiences and ad campaigns, you can see which ones perform best and adjust accordingly.

Here are some tips for testing Performance Max Audiences:

1. Start with a small budget: This strategy will allow you to test different audiences and ad campaigns without spending all your budget before you find out it’s the wrong audience.
2. Test different audiences: Try creating different audiences based on various factors, such as demographics, interests, and behaviors.
3. Monitor your results: Keep track of your ads’ performance and make adjustments as needed.
4. Create multiple campaigns: Don’t be afraid to create several campaigns with slight variations. Sometimes small differences can make a significant impact on your conversion rate.

By testing Performance Max Audiences, you can ensure that your ad campaigns reach the right audience and generate the results you are looking for.

So, try it out and see how it can work for you!

Remember, running marketing campaigns requires you to be open-minded, flexible, and willing to challenge your assumptions. If you see data contradicting your own assumptions, go with what data is telling you.

Conclusion

Using Performance Max Audience Signals can significantly benefit your advertising campaigns. By leveraging the powerful algorithms of Google, you can create a highly targeted audience that is most likely to engage with your ads and take action.

It is crucial to continually monitor and optimize your campaigns to ensure they perform at their best. AI will need guidance to know it is moving in the right direction. Without your guidance, Google won’t know if its optimizations are working.

With the right approach and a little experimentation, you can easily unlock the full potential of Performance Max Audience Signals and achieve your advertising goals.

Remember to test different audiences and ad campaigns, monitor your results closely, and be open-minded and flexible. By doing so, you can create more effective ad campaigns, reach your target audience, and generate better results.

So go ahead and try it out – you’ll be amazed at the difference it can make!

How To Use Performance Max Audience Signals is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

If your business is not taking advantage of automation, then it is missing out on many opportunities. With competition for customers’ attention growing, companies need to adjust to the new environment to remain relevant. This article aims to explain what Google Ads automation is, who should use it, and when to avoid it.

Related Articles:

• Paid Media Advertising Services
• Google Ads Management Services
• Performance Max Agency
• SEM Agency

1. Use Automated Bidding Strategies

When running campaigns on Google Ads, businesses have the option to use automated bidding strategies or manual bidding. Depending on the chosen technique, it can help save time and maximize ad spend by letting Google’s algorithms adjust bids based on various factors.

• Manual bidding requires manual bid updates for specific ad groups or keywords every time there is a change in the market or industry. There are instances when manual bidding is beneficial, and we will discuss this in the “When to Avoid Automation” section of this article.
• Automated bidding allows businesses to take advantage of machine learning and focus more on the bigger picture instead of manually updating bids per keyword or ad group. Different types of automated bidding strategies are available to marketers, and the strategy will depend on the campaign’s goal. It is possible to implement a bidding strategy at the campaign level or multiple campaign levels within Google Ads.

When using automated bidding strategies, there are some things to consider.

Firstly, machine learning needs time to “learn” what works best for campaigns, meaning the best results may not be seen at the start of the campaign. Secondly, advertisers can indicate their goals for the campaign, and Google will adjust bids automatically based on their goals. Examples of goals include increasing conversions, clicks, and visibility. However, advertisers cannot adjust bids manually for keywords or phrases within campaigns that are using automated bidding strategies. Therefore, it is best suited for campaigns with clear goals and consistent performance data.

Some of the automated bidding strategies available include Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions, and Enhanced CPC. Each method has its unique purpose and methods for adjusting bids, but they all have one thing in common: to help achieve advertising goals more efficiently.

• Target CPA (cost-per-acquisition) is ideal for businesses that want to drive conversions at a specific cost. This strategy sets bids to get as many conversions as possible while keeping the cost per conversion within a specified range.
• Target ROAS (return-on-ad-spend) is perfect for maximizing revenue while achieving a specific ROAS. This strategy sets bids to help achieve the desired ad spend return while driving as many conversions as possible.
• Maximize Conversions is an excellent choice for those who want to drive as many conversions as possible within their budget. This strategy sets bids to get the most conversions possible while spending the entire budget.
• Enhanced CPC is a good option for those who want to maintain control over their bids while still taking advantage of automated bidding. This strategy adjusts manual bids based on the likelihood of a conversion occurring.

When using automated bidding strategies, it’s essential to monitor campaigns regularly to ensure they are performing as expected. Setting realistic goals and giving the algorithm enough time to optimize bids before making changes is crucial.

Overall, automated bidding strategies can help save time and improve the efficiency of Google Ads campaigns. If considering using automated bidding, choose a method that aligns with your advertising goals and monitor campaigns regularly to ensure success.

2. Take Advantage Of Automated Rules

Automated rules are a set of actions that Google takes once the specified conditions set by the advertiser have been met. It’s like having a robot that follows your instructions and only makes the changes you’ve asked for when certain things happen. Google recommends thinking about the tasks performed frequently in your Google Ads account and structuring the rules to have these actions performed automatically.

A great example of using automated rules is to pause keywords or ads that are converting at a high cost. For instance, if you’re running a cellphone case campaign and want to keep it running only if the cost-per-acquisition (CPA) is below $4, you can set up a rule that pauses the campaign once the CPA goes over this threshold because it’s no longer profitable.

While running campaigns requires a more in-depth analysis than this simple example, it shows how automated rules can help manage campaigns more efficiently.

Automated rules can be applied to various tasks, including scheduling ads, editing ads or keywords, scheduling bids, controlling budget and costs, etc., making campaign management easier. Depending on the rule’s settings, you can also receive emails without making any changes to the campaign. These rules can also be used with Performance Max campaigns, which rely heavily on machine learning. Combining Google’s AI and your business knowledge and goals can lead to great results for your Google Ads campaigns.

While automated rules are useful, if you’re a sophisticated advertiser with scripting skills, using Google Ads Scripts may be more appropriate.

3. Use Google Ads Scripts

Google Ads Scripts require scripting skills to implement automation rules to your account. It’s similar to automated controls, but you have the option to write your script or use pre-made scripts from Google. Google Ads Scripts use Javascript as the coding language, and some of its significant benefits include:

• Bid adjustments based on performance data
• Ad scheduling based on the time of day or day of the week
• Pausing underperforming keywords or ads
• Sending email notifications when certain conditions are met
• Updating ad copy based on external data sources.

You can select pre-made scripts from Google’s library by selecting “Start from a template.”

Like automated rules, Google Scripts can save advertisers significant time by removing the need for manually reviewing and making changes to the campaign. These tools help business owners focus on delivering quality products and services while getting the most out of their advertising budget.

4. Responsive Search Ads

Responsive Search Ads are another form of automation by Google that makes creating ads much more manageable. In the past, advertisers had to create headlines and descriptions and hope that they would match what the user was looking for. However, Responsive Search Ads allow advertisers to create ads that can adapt to different search queries. This feature means that instead of creating multiple ad variations, you can create one ad that can dynamically change based on the user’s search phrase, device, and location.

Using Responsive Search Ads can lead to better campaign performance since the ad will match the user’s search and be more relevant to them. Google uses machine learning to analyze the performance of your ad combinations and shows the ones that perform the best. This means that you can focus on creating high-quality headlines and descriptions without worrying about which combination will work best. Responsive Search Ads allow up to 15 headlines and four descriptions, which means there are limitless possibilities for ad variations, and Google will test which ones work best for your business.

Including more headlines and descriptions improves your chances of creating high-performing ads. However, Google’s machine learning can only assist you if you put in the work during setup. Like any other machine learning, the system requires some time to learn what works best for your account. Therefore, it is essential to let it run before deciding whether it is a viable option for your advertising goals.

5. Set Up Campaign Notifications

Monitoring and tracking performance is crucial to the success of any Google Ads campaign. Setting up campaign notifications can help prevent unnecessary pain when running a campaign. Campaign notifications allow you to receive alerts about important events in your campaign, such as when a new ad is approved or disapproved, your budget is running low, and other significant occurrences within your campaign.

With notifications set up, you can stay on top of your campaign’s performance and make necessary adjustments to maximize your return on investment.

To set up campaign notifications:

1. Log in to your Google Ads account and go to the “Settings” tab.
2. Click on “Notifications” and select the types of notifications you want to receive.
3. You can request to be notified at the account, campaign, or even ad group level to stay informed about the information that matters most to you.

6. Take Advantage Of Performance Max

Performance Max is a fully automated campaign type designed specifically for e-commerce businesses. While it offers minimal control over some settings, it can deliver exceptional results for your business with the proper setup. It uses machine learning to optimize your ad campaigns in real-time, ensuring that your ads are shown to the right people at the right time.

However, machine learning requires time to learn about your business and adapt the advertising style that will work best for your store. One of the most exciting features of Google Performance Max is its ability to target audiences across multiple channels. Your ads can be displayed on various platforms, including YouTube, Gmail, and the Google Display Network.

Performance Max is primarily used for e-commerce ads, which requires an active Google Merchant Center account. Performance Max retrieves information from your Merchant account and uses the attributes available to match your products with potential customers. This feature eliminates the need for bidding on individual keywords or phrases. You don’t have to worry about specifying keywords since Google will show your products to potential customers without them.

7. Automate Reporting With Looker Studio

In today’s business world, data plays a vital role in decision-making. Quick and accurate data analysis can make or break a company. That’s why Google offers Looker Studio (formerly known as Google Data Studio) as another automation tool to businesses. It is a robust platform that helps automate reporting and makes data analysis more efficient.

With Looker Studio, businesses can easily create custom dashboards that display real-time data from multiple sources. This helps companies stay on top of their key performance indicators and make informed decisions. Looker Studio also simplifies sharing reports and dashboards with team members, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Manually creating reports can be a labor-intensive task, and Looker Studio’s ability to automate reporting is a significant benefit. It saves time and ensures that reports are accurate and up-to-date. Businesses can set up automated messages sent to key stakeholders regularly, eliminating the need for manual reporting and ensuring everyone can access the latest data.

Looker Studio also offers powerful data analysis tools in addition to its reporting capabilities. Users can quickly drill down into their data to uncover insights and trends, helping businesses identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions.

When To Avoid Automation

Automation is a useful tool for businesses to save time, budget, and increase performance. However, there are times when it’s best to avoid automation in Google Ads. Here are a few examples:

1. When you’re just starting out: If you’re new to Google Ads, it’s crucial to take the time to learn the platform and understand how it works. While automation can be tempting, it’s best to start manually managing your campaigns to better understand what works and what doesn’t for your business. Once you’re familiar with the process, you can gradually implement automation into your account.

1. When dealing with a unique or complex campaign: If your campaign has a lot of variables or requires a more nuanced approach, automation may not be able to handle it effectively. In these cases, it’s best to rely on human expertise to ensure your campaign is optimized for success.

1. When working with a limited budget: Although automation can be cost-effective in the long run, it often requires a significant upfront investment. If you’re working with a limited budget, managing your campaigns manually and making adjustments as needed may be more practical.

Conclusion

In summary, Google Ads automation is a valuable resource for businesses seeking to streamline their advertising campaigns and increase productivity. Nonetheless, it is critical to use automation intelligently and with care, as it may not always deliver optimal outcomes. Businesses should assess the advantages and disadvantages of automation and determine whether it is the best fit for their requirements. Ultimately, a mix of manual management and automation may be the most effective way to achieve success with Google Ads.

7 Ways To Automate Google Ads is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

When we create a Performance Max campaign, Listing Groups are the most important asset. In this article, we will discuss asset groups and listing groups to clarify any confusion and to provide information on how to optimize product listing groups so that you can efficiently manage your campaigns.

Related Articles:

• Paid Media Advertising Services
• Google Ads Management Services
• Performance Max Agency
• SEM Agency

Asset Groups Vs Listing Groups

If you don’t have a lot of experience creating, managing, and optimizing Google Ads campaigns, you may be wondering what those groups are and what the difference is between them. It can get a bit overwhelming learning all the terminology, but we will take it step-by-step for you.

First, we’ll discuss asset groups and then get into defining listing groups since they are closely interconnected.

According to Google, an asset group is a set of creatives that will be used to create an ad depending on the channel it’s being served on. Those creatives are provided by the user and then Google uses a combination of these to automatically create ads to achieve the selected campaign goals. You’ll need to create at least one asset group, but additional ones can always be added to the campaigns.

Listing groups are another way of saying a list of products and collections submitted through product feeds to Google Merchant Center which in turn is pulled by Google Ads to be used for the Performance Max campaign. Listing groups allow advertisers to select which products to advertise and which ones to exclude.

This function enables individuals to choose listings that are the highest priority to be shown to potential customers. There are many ways to group product listings within Listing Groups and we will discuss some of the most commonly used grouping techniques, such as product categories. product type, custom labels, as well as brand grouping.

How To Create A Product Listing Group

As previously discussed, product listing groups are part of your asset groups. During the process of campaign creation, there is an option to choose a single feed from Google Merchant Center to be used for the campaign, or “Use all available feeds” can be selected.

If multiple feeds are providing product details to Google Merchant Center and the goal is to advertise every product then selecting all available feeds is preferred. However, if only certain feeds are important for the campaign, then those campaigns can be selected individually from the list that appears in the “Feed label” box.

Listing groups are also accessible from the overview of the campaign. As you can see in the screenshot above, the link is located below the asset groups link for the existing campaigns. Also, settings can be accessed from the same page to make any necessary changes to the structure of the campaign, such as feeds and products to use.

Now that the proper feed is selected and targeted products are chosen, the grouping of products by attributes such as categories, product type, custom labels, and brand is possible to further customize or narrow down the listing groups for a particular campaign.

Grouping By Product Categories

Product categories are a useful way to group products if the purpose of the campaign is to focus on a particular subset of items. It is also practical for businesses that sell within multiple categories.

For example, an online store that sells car parts may have products listed within different categories: tires, brake pads, headlamps, etc.

Here you can see some of the categories that are available within Google’s category taxonomy.

A single campaign can potentially focus on one of the categories, while other campaigns focus on other ones. The benefit of such groupings is the ease of managing each category and the freedom it provides to include or exclude certain categories of products. Another benefit of running separate campaigns per category is the ability to set appropriate budgets based on category.

To group products by product category, follow the steps below:

1. Go to Campaign Overview
2. Click on Listing groups
3. If no groupings have been done, you will see All Products.
4. To the right of All Products, hover your mouse and you will see a plus sign, click on it
5. A new window will open up with options
6. The top of the page will have a drop-down Menu next to Subdivide: All products by:
7. Select Category to see eligible categories for grouping
8. From the list, select a category for the campaign and click Save

In our case, we selected Apparel & Accessories and the following is the result of our grouping:

While grouping by product categories is great, other attributes can also be used to group products to optimize listing groups.

Grouping Products By Product Type

Similar to grouping products by categories, product type grouping can be used to organize and optimize listing groups. Product type is an attribute submitted to Google Merchant Center by the user. It is an attribute used to provide self-categorization to products and is primarily used for sorting and managing listings that the business owner thinks belong together. When Google product categories do not reflect how we would like to categorize our products, we can easily use the “product type” attribute to solve the issue.

While it is a great option for grouping product listings, one caveat is that if the attribute is not being used already, it can take a considerable amount of time to submit product types for each product. Depending on the number of products currently active within your Google Merchant Center account, sometimes it makes sense to go with other available options.

Also, if your store is being hosted by an eCommerce CMS, such as Shopify, it is possible to update product type attributes in bulk. Once the product type is submitted per product, the subdivision should show all the available types and the number of products within each product type.

Grouping Products By Custom Labels

“Custom labels” is another customizable attribute similar to the “product type” that is available within Google Merchant Center and is solely used for organizing and optimization of product listing groups. As the name suggests, custom labels are created by the person responsible for product feeds and can be anything, including numbers and letters. Keeping simple naming conventions for custom labels is preferable when using custom labels.

Up to five custom labels can be submitted, starting from “Custom Label 0” all the way to “Custom Label 4.” Once again, it is an attribute that lets users self-categorize and is not visible to customers nor is it used by Google for public categorization of products.

The above screenshot shows an account that is using “Custom label 0” to separate products based on the coupon codes that give the customer a percentage off the retail price. Once a custom label is selected, the labels that are available along with the number of products under each label will be shown. Select the ones that should be served by Google for the campaign. Click “Save” and you are done with grouping products by custom labels.

Grouping Products By Brand

“Brand” is an attribute that is required by Google Merchant Center for any product that is submitted to their database. Grouping products by brand may be a good idea when the purpose of the campaign is to serve products of a specific brand.

Setting this up is very similar to setting up other listing groups. Select Brand from the drop-down menu to populate all the brands available within the product feed:

How To Filter Listing Groups

Filters are used to view listing groups that fall within a certain criteria of what you are looking for. It is an extremely useful feature that allows you to view products based on numerous data points you would like to see. For example, it is possible to view listing groups that have the most clicks, conversions, impressions, or even based on average Cost per Click (CPC).

To add a filter, simply go to the Overview of the campaign and click on “Listing groups.” Let’s say listing groups are grouped by the “Product type” and the list is long. To see which product type has an average CPC of less than $0.3, see the screenshot below:

Once a filter with appropriate conditions has been created, it can be saved for future access. This feature is great for accounts that have many products, categories, product types, etc. It allows you to filter and see which listing groups are doing well and the ones that are not doing as well based on the conditions that the user specifies.

Conclusion

To run a successful Performance Max campaign, I highly recommend spending a bit more time managing each section of the campaign to ensure everything is optimized and set up properly. Advertisers and Google’s AI can drive highly successful Performance Max campaigns through effective campaign control. By strategically grouping product listings based on goals, campaigns can achieve greater success and profitability. Utilizing filters and proper grouping ensures optimal focus on top performers, avoiding the wastage of time, money, and energy spent on less promising products.

Good luck and happy tuning!

How To Optimize Product Listing Groups is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

In this article, we’ll break down exactly how Performance Max works and how it can benefit merchants who want to run paid media campaigns. We’ll also discuss the similarities and differences between the two campaign types, so you can make better decisions for your business and your advertising strategy.  

Related Content:

• Paid Media Advertising Services
• Google Ads Management Services
• Performance Max Agency
• SEM Agency

What is Performance Max?

Performance Max was released by Google in 2021 as a replacement for Smart Shopping campaigns that also allows you to access all of Google channels from one campaign. Google considers Performance Max to be an upgrade of Smart Shopping campaigns. While running ads across multiple channels with one campaign sounds ideal, there is less transparency in regard to channel-specific performance.

Performance Max works by comparing the performance of your products against other advertisers who have similar product details and automatically bids more when Google thinks yours may perform better than theirs. It will then track this information and change bids accordingly, giving you an increased chance of winning the auction without having to spend any time managing these settings yourself. 

It takes into account people who are more likely to buy from you or even those who are unlikely to make a purchase but may still be interested enough in learning more about your brand through ads. With Performance Max, Google takes control over most customization you would usually have when running Smart Shopping campaigns which can come with both benefits and challenges.

Auction time bidding

In Smart Shopping, you could create multiple campaigns with different settings and rules so that each campaign is customized for a specific audience or action. In addition to this, Smart Shopping allowed you to see how your ads were performing on an individual basis and gave insights into which keywords were driving more sales than others.  With Performance Max, you have less control over ad rotation, targeting, and product groups. 

Performance Max uses machine learning to optimize bids based on historical data on your account and keywords. It also monitors every stage of your campaigns and bids at auction time, with every impression and click considered individually.

Omnichannel Targeting

Performance Max campaigns give you the ability to target every channel Google has to offer. Whether you are trying to get in front of your customers while they are watching videos, reading their emails, searching, or even when they are visiting partner websites, you can show ads, all using Performance Max campaigns.

The only caveat to this feature is that most eCommerce businesses make most of their sales through Shopping ads only and with Performance Max you lose the ability to run a shopping-only campaign; because of this is it imperative that you ensure your products are serving impressions and that your Performance Max budget isn’t being utilized mostly by other channels. The best way to do this is to ensure that you have a detailed product feed. Here you can learn more about product feed best practices for Google Merchant Center.

To see your products and determine if you are getting clicks and impressions on your products through shopping ads; go to the product section of your Performance Max campaign and click products.

Asset Groups

Within Performance Max, you can create multiple asset groups. As defined by Google, an asset group is a set of creatives that will be used to create an ad depending on the channel it’s being served on. It’s a best practice to organize asset groups like you organize your ad groups, by a common theme. 

As a best practice, we recommend that you fill out as many of the available assets as possible utilizing the highest-performing corresponding assets (search copy/display images/YouTube videos, etc). Google will provide you with an “optimization score” as you fill out the available information, and if you can achieve an “Excellent” rating, your ad will be set up for success. If your asset group is seeing a “Poor” rating, you’ll want to modify the ad until you see “Good” or “Excellent” rating being assigned. 

Audience Signals 

In addition to bulking up the headlines & descriptions, you now have the option to edit audience signals, which were not available in Shopping campaigns. Audience signals allow you to add audience suggestions that help Google Ads automation optimize for your selected goals. These signals can include In-Market, Custom, Demographic, and Remarketing audiences to further enhance performance.

For example, if you were a high-end furniture dealer, you might want to select the age range of people that historically buy your products so that Google can help optimize towards this age range. You might also want to select the Demographic option of Household Income in the top 10, as these people might be more likely to purchase a more expensive sofa. There are also several In-Market audiences that could work great here, such as: Living Room Furniture, Modern Furniture, Sleeper Sofas, and Furniture.

Finally, you should consider adding some Remarketing signals of users that have visited the site but have not completed a purchase in the last 90 days. 

Smart Shopping Campaigns

Now let’s compare how Smart Shopping used to work as compared to Performance Max. Smart Shopping Campaigns were an option for retailers who wanted to streamline their advertising efforts and get better results. Smart Shopping campaigns gave advertisers a lot of control over their campaign settings. These campaigns were used to target shoppers based on their shopping data. This meant that you could show ads to people who were already interested in your products. 

Similar to Performance Max, you needed a product feed from either a third-party source or from Google Merchant Center (GMC). If you were using Amazon or eBay for product listing information about your site’s inventory, then you needed to use those feeds for Google Shopping campaigns as well.

The feeds were easy to set up and cost-effective, with minimal ad spend required for effective campaigns. The automation feature of Smart Shopping Campaigns enabled you to create more campaigns with less work and improved efficiency. You could also use automation to streamline your business processes, from creating content or products to launching and managing them. Using this feature allowed you to save time on repetitive tasks, freeing you up for more strategic planning. 

Product Catalog Targeting

With Smart Shopping, Google automatically chose products, audiences and platforms for you, so there was no need for tedious manual selections or guidelines on what should be advertised. You could set up a Smart Shopping Campaign in about five minutes and they would be up and running within 24 hours.

Smart Shopping campaigns could target ads to specific users based on things like location history and past purchase behavior. In addition, since they were built around an actual product catalog— rather than simply keywords —they were able to use features like dynamic remarketing lists which allowed you to reach customers who have previously visited your website but not yet made a purchase.

Dynamic remarketing campaigns are display ads that Google shows to those who have previously visited your store. Smart Shopping would show them in the form of product images, prices, and a message you chose for partner websites.  

More Campaign Customization

Smart Shopping Campaigns were a great way to reach your customers with the products that they were most likely to buy. As we’ve already discussed, One of the biggest benefits with Smart Shopping is that you had more flexibility in customizing your campaign settings. One example is the ability to select only a few products from your Google Merchant Center to feed to advertise. 

Similarities Between Performance Max & Smart Shopping

There are many similarities between these two advertising options. Performance Max and Smart Shopping both work well with Google Merchant Center feeds, allow targeting of certain products, have location-based features, and let you adjust the schedule.  

One of the greatest advantages of Google Smart Shopping campaigns and Performance Max is that they let you automate your bids. You can set a target ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) and Google will automatically adjust your bid to reach this goal. In both, your bids are based on the data collected by a machine learning algorithm that uses both past performance and other advertisers’ performance to decide how much money should be spent on each keyword for each product category in order to maximize profits for your campaign.

Target Return on Ad Spend.

Both platforms allow you to measure the profitability of your ad campaign. The metric for measuring this is called target return on ad spend (ROAS), and it’s calculated by dividing the total revenue generated by your campaign by its total cost. In other words, if you spent $100 and made $200, then your ROAS would be 200 / 100 = 2.0.

A good ROAS for an online ad campaign can vary depending on what kind of product or service is being advertised. For example, if someone is selling shoes online, they might want their ROAS target to be much higher than someone who sells office supplies on Amazon because shoes are more expensive than paper clips and staplers.

The Differences Between Performance Max and Smart Shopping

Although Google Smart Shopping Campaigns and Performance Max are similar in many ways, they also have several key differences: 

• Performance Max is designed to manage performance-based campaigns across multiple ad groups, keywords and channels.
• Performance Max is designed to run ads on every possible platform Google has to offer
• Smart Shopping Campaigns would run shopping ads only. They are not as comprehensive as Google’s new Performance Max features. 

Remember, when it comes to both types of campaigns, you can not target certain keywords, rather Google will make that decision for you based on your Google Merchant Center product feed information.  

Automatic Upgrade to Performance Max

In July 2022, Google announced they would be upgrading Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max automatically. Google claims that additional advertising channels and everything else that Performance Max has to offer will increase conversions for businesses. One of the drawbacks of the automatic upgrade can be seen in the settings section of Performance Max. It only allows for certain customizations and you as an advertiser don’t have control over some settings. However, you may receive improved conversions and ad efficiency by utilizing Google’s advanced AI technology. 

Conclusion

We’re excited to see how Performance Max will shape the way we advertise, and we’re particularly looking forward to seeing the results it produces. AI technology seems to be taking over every aspect of our lives and Performance Max is no different, even though there is a lot more work that needs to be done on Google’s part. 

Performance Max Vs Smart Shopping: What You Need To Know is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Related Content:

• Paid Media Advertising Services
• Google Ads Management Services
• Performance Max Agency
• SEM Agency

Manual Bidding Vs Automated Bidding

Manual Bidding

If you’re an experienced marketer, manual bidding or enhanced manual bidding can be a great option for your campaigns. With this type of strategy, you specify the maximum amount that should be spent on each ad group or keywords and set bids based on the performance of those ads. It’s best used with large budgets because it gives you full control over how much money is being spent on each keyword. This allows marketers to bid higher when they’re getting good results or lower when they aren’t seeing conversions or engagement from their ads (and thus wasting budget).

Manual bidding also allows marketers to optimize their campaigns based on multiple objectives–for example: if one objective is increasing brand awareness while another objective is driving sales leads through PPC landing pages–you can create separate ad groups for each objective and then manually adjust bids accordingly so both get adequate attention without running into early budget constraints.

Manual bidding can also be super beneficial in Branded campaigns. Typically, we want to show up as much as possible for our branded terms but at the cheapest price possible. We frequently see automated bid strategies drive up CPCs, so in order to keep Branded costs low while still maintaining a high impression share we often use manual bidding.

Automated Bidding

Automated bidding simply means you will leave the decision up to Google to determine when it is a good idea to adjust bids. Google in turn will use its technology and your goals to figure out when and how much to bid per click in order for you to achieve your desired outcome. Using automated bidding and setting your goals within campaigns does not automatically mean you will achieve them. In addition, conversions must be set up correctly for automated bidding to have the most impact as Google will use the conversion data to make decisions.

For example, if you tell Google that you want a ROAS of 20, Google will adjust your bids accordingly, but if it is unrealistic, your ads may not serve at all since the bids will be so low. You will have to set realistic goals based on the current campaign data and can adjust them depending on how your ads perform.

This method is not just for those who are starting out, but even experienced marketers can make use of it. Again, it will depend on many factors and goals of your advertising campaigns.

Pros and Cons Of Automated Bidding

Benefits

The most obvious advantage of automated bidding is that it takes the guesswork out of setting your bids. Instead of manually setting your bids each day, you can let Google calculate them for you and change them automatically based on how much competition there is for your keywords in real time. This can help keep costs down without sacrificing performance or missing any opportunities for conversions.

Drawbacks

While this feature can be useful for businesses with large ad campaigns, it might not be ideal for small companies or startups with limited budgets who don’t have much experience using paid search advertising tools like Google Ads. If a company doesn’t have enough data on their products or services yet, then they may run into issues determining what bid amount would generate enough clicks without costing too much money per click (CPC).

Additionally, if someone wants full control over their CPCs then manual bidding might be preferable. With manual bidding you’ll know exactly when changes need to be made rather than relying on an algorithm that could potentially make mistakes due its inherent limitations. For example, algorithms might not consider factors like seasonality which could lead to certain keywords having different values depending upon how frequently they’re searched throughout the year.

1. Maximize Clicks

As the name suggests, this strategy is implemented when you want to get as many clicks as possible for the budget that you have. If you’re new to Google Ads, or if you want to increase your clicks, the Maximize Clicks strategy is for you.

This strategy is easy to set up and understand, and it allows advertisers who are new to Google Ads to quickly get their campaigns up and running. Google Ads’ Maximize Clicks bidding strategy is designed to maximize clicks, not impressions or conversions. Maximize Clicks is a good strategy for advertisers who are trying to get more traffic to their site and are not as focused on conversions. We often use this bid strategy for the first month or 2 of launching a new campaign in order to gather initial data. From there, we review if it makes sense to upgrade to a more conversion centered strategy.

You can follow these steps to set up a “Maximize Clicks” bid strategy:

1. Specify your ad group’s goal.
2. Set a cost per click (CPC) target or maximum cost per click (CPM) limit.
3. Select Maximize clicks as the bidding strategy for the ad group when you want to maximize clicks by decreasing your bid further than other automated strategies would allow

If you decide that Maximize Clicks is not benefiting your campaigns, then you can change your bidding strategy to other methods. Next, let’s discuss Target Impression Share and see if it is right for you.

2. Target Impression Share

Target impression share is a bidding strategy that allows you to control how much of the available ad space on a given keyword or ad group you want to take up. To set up target impression share you can follow these steps:

1. Within the Settings of your campaign, select “Bidding”
2. Choose “Impression Share” from the strategies
3. Select where you would like the ad to appear:
   1. Anywhere on results page
   2. Top of results page
   3. Absolute top of results page
4. Enter a percentage in the field
5. Decide on your maximum CPC bid limit

For example, if you want to spend 80% of your budget on getting impressions for one keyword but only 20% on getting clicks, enter 80 as your target impression share and then choose “Impressions” from its drop-down menu (instead of clicks).

Targeting impressions instead of clicks means that Google will try not just to get users’ attention with ads but also keep those users engaged so they can see more than one ad before leaving their search results page. This gives advertisers more chances at being seen by potential customers and converting them into leads or sales opportunities. One important thing to remember is that this strategy is only available for “Search Network” and will not be applicable for partner websites.

The most practical use for the Target Impression Share strategy is when your campaign has your brand name and you are trying to build brand awareness. If you are focused more on conversions, then Target Impression Share may not be right for you, so let’s look at Target CPA strategy.

3. Target CPA

Target CPA is the amount you would like to spend to get one conversion. It’s a common way to optimize for conversions, but it can also be used as an alternative bidding strategy.

If you set your Target CPA, it doesn’t mean you will get a conversion once you spend that amount, but Google will try to control the ad spend to ensure that you get clicks that are most likely to convert within that CPA. Your CPA may end up being higher or lower than your Target CPA, but over time Google will learn more about your business and may be able to deliver on the one you set.

You might set up a Target CPA campaign if you have an average order value (AOV) that is lower than what you want it to be. For example, let’s say that your current AOV is $100 and the average cost per sale (ACS) of customers who convert on your website is $200. If that were true then setting up a Target CPA campaign would allow advertisers with low AOVs like yours to still make money off of their ads without having them bid too high in order to win clicks from users who are looking for high-value offers.

4. Target ROAS

As a measure of the performance of your ads, return on ad spend (ROAS) is calculated by dividing the revenue generated from your ads by the amount you spent on them. You can think of this as “What did I get for my money?” or “How much money did each dollar spent on Google Ads generate?”.

Target ROAS bidding is an automated bidding strategy that maximizes the return on ad spend (ROAS). It does this by strictly targeting a specific dollar value for each click and then adjusting bids as necessary to achieve that target ROAS goal. Target ROAS is useful for advertisers who want to maximize their return on investment from Google Ads campaigns.

Target ROAS is set as a percentage of what you would like your ad spend to bring in in revenue. For example, if you would like to have a revenue of $100 per $10 spent, then your Target ROAS would be set at 1,000%.

It’s very important to understand the percentages you want to set. If you set the wrong one, you may end up spending more budget than you intend. Alternatively, you may not get any clicks if the percentage is too high. As is the case with Maximize clicks and Target CPA, if your goals are not realistic, Google will still follow your guidance but you still may not receive much traffic.

With all of these benefits and drawbacks, it’s important to understand that automated bidding is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It can be difficult to set up, optimize and track. In addition, managing an account with automated bids requires constant monitoring and adjustments as your business changes over time. If you’re looking for something more hands-off than this option offers–but still want the advantages of Google Ads’ automated features–consider using Smart Bidding with Maximize Conversions instead, which is discussed next.

5. Maximize Conversions

Maximize conversions is the most important goal of any pay-per-click campaign. This strategy will focus on maximizing the number of conversions and not the value of conversions. Google will use its smart bidding technology to bid on keywords and phrases that have the highest chance of converting for your business.

When you maximize conversions, you’re optimizing for the most conversions you can get per your budget. This means that Google Ads will show your ads to people who are more likely to convert at the best possible cost per click (CPC).When you optimize for conversions, it means that the majority of your ad spend is going toward people who are likely to buy from your store or service. When these customers click on an ad and visit one of your websites and end up purchasing your product or service, the action is recorded as a conversion.For example: if you have 100 visitors and 10 purchases registered, then your conversion rate would be 10%. However, if those same 100 visitors resulted in only 5 purchases, then your conversion rate would be 5%.

This strategy acts very similar to Target CPA and Target ROAS if you use the option of setting CPA within this strategy, but if you leave the CPA section blank, then Google will use your budget to maximize conversions for your business by using its machine learning systems and optimizing bids automatically.

If you would like your campaigns to focus more on the value of each conversion rather than the number of conversions, then the next strategy might be for you.

6. Maximize Conversion Value

Similar to Maximize Conversion strategy, Maximize Conversion Value uses Google’s automated smart bidding strategy to use your budget to achieve your desired results. The difference is this particular strategy focuses on the value of each conversion.

For example, if your campaigns lead to 2 conversions with each resulting in revenue of $1,000 each, then Google would prefer those two conversions rather than 10 conversions with $50 value each with this strategy.

Maximizing conversion value is the most important objective in Google Ads. There are many ways to maximize conversion value, but they usually involve bidding for conversions or using a conversion optimizer. If you would like to know the difference between Maximize Conversion and Maximize Conversion Value, then you can read Google’s explanation here.

7. Portfolio Bid Strategies

The last bid strategy I’d like to walk you through is the option of setting up a Portfolio bid strategy. Portfolio bid strategies, as explained by Google, are automated, goal-driven bid strategies that help you optimize bids across multiple campaigns. They automatically help you reach your performance goals and provide a single place for you to quickly change bidding settings for all campaigns that use a single portfolio bid strategy. We don’t steer towards this option very much, but portfolio bid strategies can actually be really beneficial if you’re wanting to use data across multiple campaigns to achieve a specific goal.

Portfolio bid strategies allow your campaigns to essentially share data, goals, and even budget. You can also deploy advanced combinations of the different strategies discussed above. One example of this is that you can utilize TCPA bidding while setting a max CPC limit, whereas you cannot set a max CPC bid limit using the normal TCPA bid strategy setup. If you’d like to read more about these options, here is a great additional article by Pixelrush.

Portfolio bid strategy options can be found in Tools & Settings -> Bid Strategies.

Portfolio bid strategies are much more complex, and we definitely recommend testing the individual automated bidding strategies above before testing this option.

Conclusion

Do you feel like a bid strategy expert yet? Hopefully, with these explanations, you’ll be able to start testing in your campaigns to see which strategy works best for your goals. Always remember to give your campaigns a few weeks to learn before switching from bid strategy to bid strategy because you want to make sure there is enough data before making a decision one way or the other. Automated bidding can really help your campaigns, but remember that there are always trade-offs: if you want to use automated bidding then it’s important to understand its limitations and know how much flexibility there is when making decisions about which strategy will work best for each campaign. Happy testing!

7 Automated Bidding Strategies In Google Ads is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.