Discover how five key Smart Bidding strategies in Google Ads can help you optimise ad spending and increase revenue.
This article is sponsored by Invoca. The opinions expressed are those of the sponsor.
In the current marketing landscape, AI is no longer just a buzzword; it’s a necessity. Approximately 90% of marketers are ramping up their AI investment this year, with the primary goal of improving their Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
If you’re not leveraging AI to maximise your ad budget, you may risk falling behind competitors who are already using these tools to gain an advantage. But don’t worry – there are a host of AI tools available that not only help you get more from your campaigns but also drive revenue growth without increasing your advertising costs. One of the most impactful of these tools is Google Ads Smart Bidding.
This article explores five Smart Bidding strategies that will help you generate more revenue from your campaigns.
What is Google Ads Smart Bidding?
Google Ads Smart Bidding is an AI-driven tool designed to adjust bids automatically and in real-time, helping you achieve your campaign goals. The strength of Smart Bidding lies in its capacity to analyse patterns and trends far faster than any human could. By using Smart Bidding, you can allocate your budget more effectively, allowing your team to focus on high-value tasks and, ultimately, drive revenue growth.
5 Tips for Revenue Growth with Google Ads Smart Bidding
1. Align Your Bidding Strategy with Revenue Goals
Smart Bidding in Google Ads offers multiple options that align with different campaign objectives. Choosing the right strategy depends on your specific goals and budget. Some popular options include:
Maximise Conversions:
This strategy adjusts bids to drive as many actions as possible, such as sign-ups, purchases, or form submissions. It’s ideal for campaigns focused on driving user actions.
Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition):
With this strategy, you set a target cost for each customer acquisition. Google Ads then automatically sets bids to meet this cost, making it a great choice if you’re focused on managing acquisition costs.
Target ROAS:
This strategy allows you to set a target ROAS, and Google Ads adjusts bids based on expected conversion values. If you’re aiming to maximise revenue while maintaining a specific ROAS, this strategy can deliver effective results.
Enhanced Conversions:
This strategy leverages machine learning to predict and adjust bids for actions or events that are most valuable to your business. Enhanced Conversions help improve your ROAS and increase campaign efficiency, with Google reporting a 5% increase in conversion rates for marketers who use this option on Search.
The key to maximising revenue with Smart Bidding is ongoing monitoring and optimisation to keep your campaigns aligned with your revenue targets.
2. Use Advanced AI Tools to Expand Your Reach
Google provides AI tools to complement your Smart Bidding strategy and help you reach a larger audience. Here’s an overview of two major tools and how they work:
Broad Match:
This tool expands your reach by matching related keywords and synonyms, increasing the chances of reaching a wider audience. To optimise, create a broad and inclusive keyword list to capture more search variations. According to Google, marketers who use Broad Match in Target CPA campaigns achieve, on average, 35% more conversions.
Performance Max:
A more advanced AI-powered tool, Performance Max optimises your campaigns across all Google networks (like YouTube and Google Maps) and ad formats. This tool automatically adjusts bids for the best results, helping to maximise conversions and optimise ad spend. Google reports that marketers using Performance Max can see an 18% increase in conversions at a comparable cost per action.
By combining Broad Match with Performance Max, you can significantly increase reach and conversion potential.
3. Leverage Revenue Execution Platforms for Optimised Smart Bidding
AI tools are only as effective as the data you provide. In many high-value industries, such as healthcare, home services, automotive, and telecommunications, phone calls make up 20-50% of conversions. Missing out on tracking these calls can hinder your Google Smart Bidding performance, as bid automation tools use conversion data to determine which ad variations are most effective.
Platforms like Invoca can track these phone conversions and feed the data directly into Google Ads, allowing Google’s Smart Bidding AI to make better-informed adjustments. This ensures that your ad budget is optimised based on accurate, comprehensive data, resulting in a more effective return on investment.
4. Enhance Retargeting with Data-Driven Insights
Retargeting is a highly cost-effective method for increasing conversions, especially when targeting users who have previously interacted with your brand. To take your retargeting efforts up a notch, it’s crucial to utilise first-party data, especially from phone conversations, which are a rich source of customer insights.
Platforms like Invoca can analyse these conversations to gather actionable data, capturing information on customer preferences, pain points, and product interests. Here are some strategies that marketers use with Invoca’s first-party data:
- Retarget callers who didn’t convert by showing ads for products they inquired about.
- Target price-sensitive callers with ads featuring a special discount.
- Suppress ads for customers who have already converted to avoid redundant advertising.
With detailed insights from customer conversations, you can refine your retargeting efforts, resulting in more relevant ad campaigns that improve engagement and drive conversions.
5. Identify and Address Call Experience Challenges
Poor call handling can result in lost revenue, as potential leads are often lost to missed calls, long wait times, or unoptimised scripts. Without tracking these call experience issues, you may be overlooking a significant opportunity to improve your conversions.
With a revenue execution platform like Invoca, you can access detailed reports on call handling by location and agent, providing insights into where your call experience can be improved. For example, you might discover that a particular location has a high rate of unanswered calls, indicating the need for better call routing or increased staffing.
Additionally, Invoca’s platform tracks conversion data by agent, making it easier to identify agents who may need further training. By addressing these issues – whether through improved staffing, refined scripts, or better call routing – you can increase conversions from your ad campaigns.
Conclusion
By following these five tips and integrating a revenue execution platform, B2C marketers can take full advantage of Google’s AI capabilities, optimising ad spend and driving revenue growth from every dollar invested in their marketing campaigns.
This content has been crafted using foundational insights and guidelines from the resource Search Engine Journal, which provides detailed knowledge on the latest Google Ads AI strategies. For more in-depth insights and up-to-date information, consider visiting their website.
