PPC Bid Strategies & Keyword Match Types: A Guide to Optimizing Your Search Ads

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Pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising allows businesses to show ads on search engine results pages when certain keywords are searched. To run an effective PPC campaign, you need to have the right bid strategy and keyword match type. In this post, we’ll look at the different options and how to choose what works best.

Common Types of Bidding Strategies

There a few core bidding strategies when it comes to PPC, which all of them depend on your objective for the campaign:

  • Manual bidding: With manual bidding, you set the maximum bid for each keyword. This gives you the most control, but requires close monitoring and frequent adjustments.
  • Enhanced CPC bidding (ECPC): ECPC allows Google to automatically adjust your manual bids up or down based on each click’s expected conversion value. It aims to get more conversions within your budget.
  • Target CPA bidding: With this strategy, you set a target cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and Google will automatically adjust bids to try and maintain that average CPA. This is great for focusing on conversions vs clicks.
  • Target ROAS bidding: Target ROAS bidding: Similar to target CPA, but you set a target return on ad spend (ROAS). Google will adjust bids to aim for that target ROAS.
  • Maximize Clicks bidding: With this automated bid strategy, Google will maximize your clicks within a set budget. It works well for brand awareness goals.
  • Maximize Conversions bidding: Based on your objective, whether it’s form fills, phone calls, etc, Google will try to serve ads to the people who will most likely convert, or take the desired action for the least amount of money possible. This method helps drive and optimizes for cost per lead (CPL) metrics. It’s common for this bidding strategy to have good CPL numbers, but poor down-funnel metrics (Cost per MQL, Cost per Opportunity, etc).

The best bidding strategy depends on your goals and flexibility. Manual bidding provides the most control but requires close optimization. Automated bidding like ECPC and target CPA bidding are lower maintenance but may have less predictable results month-to-month.

Keyword Match Types

Google also allows you to control how closely a search query must match your keyword using match types:

  • Broad match: Ads can show for searches containing any words in the keyword, in any order. Provides maximum reach but less relevance. 
  • Phrase match: Ads show for search terms containing the exact keyword phrase. Narrows targeting but maintains good reach.
  • Exact match: Ads only show when the exact keyword phrase is searched. Very narrow targeting for high relevance.
  • Negative match: Excludes searches with certain words or phrases. Used to filter out irrelevant queries.

A best practice is to use a combination of broad, phrase, and exact match keywords. Broad match reaches the widest range of searches, then phrase and exact match refine targeting to the most relevant queries. Negative match excludes clearly irrelevant results. 

Start with a core focus on phrase match, supplemented by broad and exact match options. Adjust match types based on performance data over time.

In summary, the right bidding strategy and keyword match types allow you to maximize the impact of your PPC budget. Consider both conversion goals and your workflow when choosing automated vs manual bidding. Use the match types strategically to balance volume

Jason Weed

Is a father and husband that.....

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