What you’ll learn
Once Google Ads metrics show you which keywords, locations, times, and devices are getting better results, you can adjust your bids to favor the better performers. This course explains how to use bid adjustments to help drive your business objectives.
What you’ll learn:
The types of bid adjustments available
How to determine the right bid adjustment strategy to drive your business goals
What would you do?
Imagine you’re in a new city for a work trip. You’re out and about and have 30 minutes to grab lunch before your next meeting. Which of the following would you be more likely to do to find a good place to eat?
Think like a user
There are many things that can influence what users search for and how they do it, including where they are, what they're doing, the device they're using, and even what time it is. When planning your Google Ads campaign, you'll want to take these variations into account so you can reach users when and where they’re most likely to be interested. Bid adjustments can help you do this.
What is a bid adjustment?
A bid adjustment allows you to raise or lower your bids in certain scenarios. With bid adjustments, you can bid higher to increase the visibility of your ads. You can even adjust bids for devices your users are on, meaning you can bid different amounts for desktop, tablet, and mobile.
Bid adjustments in action
Let’s say you own a restaurant. You’ve seen that people who are closer to your restaurant are more likely to come in for a bite than those who are further away. Since those local customers are worth more, you want to show your ads more frequently to users who are close by and less frequently to users who are far away. Take a look at how you can use bid adjustments to do this.
You know that people who are close to your store are more likely to come in, so you can increase your bids by 75 percent for users who are nearby. This will help you show more frequently on searches that happen nearby.
Users searching from a few miles away from your restaurant are likely to come in, though not as often as users within walking distance. You could increase your bids by 40 percent for this region to show more frequently to users in this area. You’d want to be a bit less aggressive with your bid here since this area hasn’t performed as well as the area right by your restaurant.
You've noticed that people searching from more than 20 miles away are really unlikely to visit, and your ads haven’t performed well in this area. Lowering your bids for this region will help you focus your spend on customers who are searching from areas that are more likely to visit.
What types of bid adjustments are available?
There are many different types of bid adjustments you can make, and you’ll want to consider different types of adjustments depending on your goals and previous performance. Let’s explore the bid adjustments available.
Device:
Use device bid adjustments to show your ad more or less frequently for searches that occur on different devices. You can adjust your bid across mobile, desktop, and tablet to optimize more precisely for each device.
For example, if you’re promoting an app, you could raise bids for mobile users to focus on driving app installs, while decreasing your bid for desktop.
Location:
Use location bid adjustments to show your ad more or less frequently to customers in certain countries, cities, or other geographic areas.
For example, if you own a restaurant, you could raise bids to show your ads more frequently to people nearby.
Time of day:
Use ad scheduling bid adjustments to increase or decrease your bids on certain days or during certain hours.
For example, if you’re a meal delivery service, you could raise your bids from 5-7pm to increase your chances of showing ads to hungry commuters on their way home.
Top content:
Use bid adjustments for popular content to increase your ad’s chance of showing on top content on YouTube and the Display Network. When your ad is eligible to appear on this content, Google Ads will use your bid adjustment to raise your bid.
For example, you could raise your bids for the hottest new cat video on YouTube.
Top content adjustments are recommended for advanced users.
Targeting methods:
Use bid adjustments for topics, placements, and other targeting methods in campaign types that show ads on the Display Network.
For example, if you sell luggage, you could increase your bids on travel sites in the Display Network so you’re more likely to show on travel blogs and review sites.
Targeting method adjustments are recommended for advanced users.
Remarketing lists for search ads:
Use bid adjustments for remarketing lists in your ad groups if you’d like to show ads more or less frequently to people on these lists.
For example, you could increase your bid for those who previously viewed your website in the last 30 days.
Remarketing list adjustments are recommended for advanced users.
Interactions:
Use interactions for more control over how potential customers connect with your business.
For example, you can increase your bid for mobile devices to show call interaction ads more frequently for mobile phone users. Interaction bid adjustments influence how often you show call extensions and call-only ads to users.
Using bid adjustments to reach your goals
Let’s take a look at how a restaurant in Mountain View successfully used bid adjustments to reach their goal of increasing foot traffic.
The restaurant owners know that new customers typically visit their restaurant when they’re nearby and after they have searched on their mobile device.
So they bid more competitively on local users who were on mobile devices during store hours to drive more profitable conversions.
By combining bid adjustments, they were able to take advantage of consumer behavior and bring in more customers.
Recap
In this course we covered the different ways you can adjust bids to improve your campaign performance. Now, ask yourself this: What adjustments could you make to reach users in moments that matter?
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