Unlock Signals with Auction-time Bidding

There seemed to have been this understanding in the past that paid search practitioners and agencies needed to beat Google’s desire to make brands spend more in order to be considered as adding value. Many did this by creating very granular structures and scaling them. Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs) were very popular as the more segmentation in an account, the more control advertisers had in reaching users relevant to them. 

Google responded by introducing automated bid strategies. At first, this really didn’t add much value as manual bid changes still drove stellar results. As machines do though, over time they’ve gotten better than human management especially as Google removed many campaign settings that clash with automation (think, ad delivery).

Nowadays, advertisers need to realize that more advanced bid strategies unlock signals and capabilities not available when bidding manually. Auction-time bidding does not even rely on keyword level insights and ties more about who it thinks campaigns are trying to target and anticipates that user’s conversion likelihood based on what Google knows about that user.

It really is no longer the case that paid search professionals and agencies need to outsmart Google but instead need to know as much as possible about its technology and leverage as much of it as possible. Persistent skeptics will lose out to reaching users who are interested in their products or services because auction-time bidding will identify the right users for advertisers who are using this feature.

Further, in a world where every advertiser is using auction-time bidding, it would be even more important to know how to leverage Google tags to the fullest, such that it represents the holistic objectives of the brand. Not all websites are created equal and certainly not tagged the same way. Regardless of the type of brand, it is important that Google is fed as much information as possible to go and look for users who would be customers of the brand.

Strategize on how to leverage automated bid strategies. Conduct discovery on what is currently being tracked, how tagging is set up and plug any gaps. Decide on the right actions for the bid strategy to optimize toward. Open the brand to signals that Google keeps to itself. There is enough going on in the industry to have a mentality to be smarter than Google. It is time to think of how to maximize the power of Google to reach your brand and business objectives.

Stay tuned for more thoughts around the changing landscape of digital marketing.