Maximize Conversions (PPC)

How to Maximize Conversions works

Google uses historical information about your campaign and then, when it evaluates the context, the platform bids automatically to find the most optimal bid for your ad. All of this is possible with machine learning technology that optimizes bids and offers auctions for every action to get the cheapest conversions for your budget.

Pro Recommendation: To make the most of this bidding strategy, make sure that you are tracking closely aligned to your business goals. 

When should you change to Maximize conversions?

Usually, the best time to change to Maximize Conversions is when your Google campaign has had enough historical data, it can be when it is up to 5 to 10 conversions, so you can optimize towards the conversions you programmed. The second-month mark of a campaign is the moment where your campaign has enough data to change to a manual bid strategy.

Maximize conversions is the most simple conversion-based bid strategy, it tells Google to find you the perfect candidates for conversions. Take in mind that this bid strategy will take all your daily budget, no matter if it brings conversions or not. Find this complete guide on digital marketing funnel. Every time you change your bid strategy your campaign will return to learning mode, but don’t worry. Usually, it takes up to two weeks for Google to learn how to optimize your campaign. Don’t stop the process in two weeks if you notice it is down, wait for 4 weeks to see the real results.

Maximizing conversions is probably the most simple conversion-based bid strategy as it simply tells Google to find you the most possible conversions with your daily budget as possible. Once you have exhausted all the potential of your manual campaigns, the best way to continue squeezing the full potential of your ads is with Maximize Conversion, since through its algorithm, you can get those extra leads you want to make your business grow more.

• Maximize conversions bidding (customer actions that convert to sales or service) will help you optimize towards conversions.
  • You have the option to set a Target CPA on your Maximize conversions bidding strategy, which means Smart Bidding will try to get as many conversions as possible at the target CPA that you set. If the Target CPA option is not set, then Maximize conversions will aim to spend your budget to get as many conversions as possible.

Note: When using Maximize conversions bidding, we recommend that you use tools such as budget simulator and impression share metrics to understand the budget opportunity available on your campaign. This only applies when the Target CPA or Target ROAS isn’t set to Maximize conversion strategies.

We don’t recommend using the impression share “Lost IS (budget)” column in Google Ads with Maximize conversions because the column is incompatible with the bid strategy. Maximize conversions or Maximize conversion value bid strategies are designed to spend the full daily budget, and are ”limited by budget” by design as campaigns are considered constrained by the budget you set. Whereas the budget simulator accounts for this, the “Lost IS (budget)” column does not currently account for this, and uses a different definition to account for lost impressions.

Before switching to maximize conversions

So before taking the step to maximize conversions make sure to…

• Check your average daily month budget. This option will spend your complete budget, so, if you are spending less than your budget, Maximize conversions could increase it significantly.
• Evaluate your Return-on-investment goals. If your ultimate goal is to target cost per install (CPI), cost per action (CPA) or return on ad spend (ROAS), your best option is to change to Target CPI, Target CPA or Target ROAS. These other strategies can set bids for each auction without spending the whole budget.

Maximize conversion

Pros

• This bidding strategy will help you optimize by turning customer actions that convert to sales or services.
• You can set a Target CPA on your Maximise conversions bidding strategy helping you get as many conversions as possible at the final goal you set. If you don’t set a target CPA option, then Maximize conversions will spend the complete budget to get as many conversions as possible.
• The primary goal in business. Most businesses use this metric called conversion as it is one of the most important goals from making a business. The more conversions you have, the more revenue you generate.
• Used in all stages of business. As compared to maximize clicks which are mostly used at the start of a business, maximize conversions can be used in any stage of a business. You can use them at the beginning to generate more data or choose it later on (better option).
• Device bid adjustments. It can adjust your bids by considering different factors. Although you can’t adjust most of your bids manually, you can make adjustments to mobile device users. For instance, if you want to show less frequently to mobile device users, you can set it as -100% for not showing up altogether.

Cons

• Conversion tracking is needed. Although it may work without any conversion tracking, you should have it in place before using this campaign for optimal results. Because if you don’t have any data, it doesn’t know from history which transactions are better compared to others. Ideally, 50 conversions would be good, but 100 would be even better.
• Learn the system initially. Machine learning needs some time to learn and test your campaigns to work properly. So, it is fine, if you lose a little initially.
• Longer time for small websites. As it requires a learning period at the beginning, if you have a high conversion volume, you can start faster. If you have less traffic, you have to wait, or else it may not be the right strategy for you.

Higher than average costs. Sometimes your conversions can be very expensive if it anticipates a higher chance of converting. The costs may rise to 3 or 4 times the average cost of a conversion.

Google AdWords Management Tips

Customizing them

In order to achieve the best performance, you need to change some of the settings in them.

Controlling your Conversions

This strategy has a lot of benefits, but every now and then some of your conversions can be very expensive.

And that’s what keeps most advertisers from using it.

Your conversions can be much more controlled if you set a target cost per action (target CPA).

It tries to make your conversions at or around that number that you set.

But, to be able to implement that you need to set up your conversion tracking.

Start by Disqualifying Leads

Remember the Pareto Principle: 80% of your business is going to come from 20% of your leads. You need to use Google AdWords to find that 20% and disqualify the other 80%.

Save Big Bucks by Running Display Network Ads on LinkedIn

Are you running a B2B service? If so, then LinkedIn is one of your very best friends.

Fortunately, you can run Google Display Network ads on LinkedIn. Many digital marketers don’t know that. Even better, though, is that you can actually save money by running those ads with Google instead of LinkedIn. Targeting LinkedIn with Google Display ads is easy. Just create a Placement Targeted Ad Group. Within that group, specify LinkedIn as your target.

Don’t Use Your Home Page As Your Landing Page

Some marketers think they can put together a great ad campaign and just point it to their home page. That’s not always a good idea. Because your home page probably isn’t targeted to a specific market segment.

AdWords ads often use keywords and ad copy that appeal to a subset of people within a target market. That’s why the landing page should resonate with those same people. A home page isn’t likely to do that. Also, keep in mind that your Quality Score is likely to take a hit if your landing page isn’t relevant to your ad. When your Quality Score dips, then your ad will appear lower in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Quality score is an important part of Google AdWords management, make sure your team is focusing on improving your quality score. It helps with costs and Ad Rank.

Use Geotargeting

You might be in a niche that doesn’t appeal to people all across the country. If that’s the case, you use geotargeting to better refine your pay per click ads. This will ensure that you attract more quality leads. For example, if you’re marketing saltwater fishing tackle online, you probably won’t have a whole lot of customers who live in South Dakota. That’s why you should target your ad to appear only to people who live in states close to an ocean or the Gulf of Mexico.

How do you do that? With a clever hack.

Just bid negative amounts for specific regions. That way, you won’t have to worry about your ad appearing to people who live in those regions.

Run Mobile-Optimized Campaigns

It’s the Mobile Era. If you don’t appeal to a mobile audience, you’re going to lose significant market share to competitors who do. When it comes to Google AdWords management, you need mobile ads, a mobile landing page and a mobile optimized checkout process.  Remember, 80% of Internet users own a smartphone. Those people are using their smartphones to surf the web and look for things to buy. That’s why you need to ensure that your AdWords ad is optimized for mobile users. Take a look at the analytics for your “generic” campaign. If you find that it’s attracting a lot of mobile eyes, duplicate it. Then, optimize the duplicated campaign solely for a mobile crowd. You do that by bidding negative amounts for desktop platforms. That way, your ad only appears to people on a mobile device. Keep in mind that you might want to take things a step further by separating tablet and smartphone campaigns. Those two platforms have significantly different screen sizes and might require specific optimization efforts.

Put Your Keyword in the Display URL

Is your keyword in the display URL? If not, why not? When you include the keyword in the URL, you’re making the ad more relevant to the keyword. Fortunately, modern technology makes it easy to create whatever URL you want for your landing page. Take advantage of that and improve your ad’s performance.

Increase/Optimize/Reduce

Your Ad Rank determines where your ad appears in the SERPs. It’s derived, in part, by your bid. However, it’s also derived from other factors, such as the quality of the ad and the relevance of the landing page to the ad. That’s why it’s a great idea to use the following process for your ad campaigns: Start by bidding high to get to the top. Then, continue to optimize the ads to make them more relevant to the keyword and get more clicks. Next, continue to optimize your landing page to improve its relevance to the ad. Make sure you are running a split test or two. Finally, reduce your bid a little bit at a time so you’re not wasting money. That’s a pattern that will help you maximize your ROI.