How to set an appropriate Adwords max CPC?
-
How do you gauge setting your initial max cost-per-click for specific keywords?
For example, you have a keyword that has an estimated "first page bid" at $6.25. If you are wanted your ad to show competitively with your competition, how much should you start at? Two times the "first page bid?" Three times?
I'm working on revamping some ad campaigns to help with our paid marketing expenses. I do have quite a budget to work at, but we are hoping to cut down some of this cost. We just spent the past few months trying to spend our way out of some poor quality scores and CTR's. Our metrics have improved drastically, now I want try and cut down our CPC, which is over $19! Our ROI is hard to calculate due to the fact that it can take a few years to obtain profit from the market we are in. Our conversion rates are over 9% from paid advertisement to leads (which is pretty decent for our market).
I am all eyes and ears on this subject... I am ready to start playing around with prices tomorrow to see how we fare, in hopes I get some solid responses before then.
Thanks in advance!
-
This is another great suggestion and YES I do this on a weekly basis. IMO, your answer fits right in with the discussion.
I usually like to pull my full reports from AWStats from within the server. I then "weed" out certain words that should be within my negative campaigns and find others that may be worth running.
-
It's one step away from your question, but have you looked at your search query report recently, to see the actual keywords people are using? If you can raise your CTR by getting rid of irrelevant impressions, you can hopefully lower your CPC, and also avoid paying for some off-target clicks.
-
Lol. No worries! Always reply with great responses. Never know who may be looking for that answer as well.
Right now, we are not running location specific campaigns. Only nationwide 24/7. Haven't had the time to really "fine tune" this account due to the massive amount of keywords, landing pages and ads running already.
Job security maybe?
-
Totally. Sorry if I sounded too generic but it's always difficult to figure out the back story on someone's question. It sounds like you're doing all the right things. You're likely doing location specific and day parting as well where applicable.
-
Excellent information and well put together answer!
I don't want to take away from it, but I have already done all of my homework (as you have already suggested above). I was merely searching for a modest starting point at cutting down our CPC to a certain extent.
I would have to imagine I have answered my own question while asking it. I need to simply adjust my pricing (decrease max CPC) till I feel satisfied with our positioning and our conversion rates.
-
First, I'd spend a little extra time on getting at the value of your leads, if at all possible as this is a key component of answering your own question. Perhaps you can find that number in generalized industry data, or you can extrapolate from what you currently have.
Next I'd begin breaking the high cost CPC keywords into their own very specific ad groups and/or campaigns so that you have maximum control over the ads running, split testing, and placement.
After that I'd begin lowering bids until I'm in the 2nd or 3rd place slot and then split test ad titles and descriptions to find my sweet spot, as well as continuing to run conversion tests on the landing pages. At the same time I'd be looking for content placements on highly applicable sites and see if I could find some markets where I'm plugging in to my target demographic but at a lower cost than search.
Finally, lather, rinse, repeat. Keep working the system to increase current lead/sales volumes while decreasing costs.
But to answer your first question, typically I aim high at the beginning in cost and then work my way down with the price as the data comes in.
-
use http://www.semrush.com/ to get ideas of cpc prices - but i normally just start first page page bid or low then watch positioning
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Adwords landing pages with no site links
Adwords best practices say to focus landing pages on conversions, with no navigational links to the rest of your website so they don't get distracted. However, now that Google Ads in the SERPs look so similar to organic results, visitors may click the ads instead of the organic result because that's what they see first. What is the risk of turning off these visitors who come to a landing page with a form, instead of a way to navigate through the rest of your site? Discussion question: Trade-offs between a form-focused landing page and providing navigation to the rest of the site?
Conversion Rate Optimization | | JannetteP1 -
Using my Adwords budget
Hi, I have a huge budget for adwords but I only seem to be using about 1/10 of it daily. How to I go about using more budget but also keeping my conversion costs and % around the same? And should each campaign have its own set of unique keywords? Should these keywords never appear in more than 1 campaign? Any tips on maximising budget and increasing conversions would be great. Thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | YNWA1 -
Adwords Support...
Hi Mozzers, I have a Adwords campaign that I am taking over very soon. Involves quite a big spend (between £500-£1000) a day. Sales and conversions have dropped and I am coming in to try get them back up. I know my way around but with this ever changing Adwords tool now I would like to some decent tips if anyone has any on how to increase conversion, use of sitelinks, is optimizer any good, and get the Ad to the top of the page (currently around 3-4th). any help would be great. thanks
Conversion Rate Optimization | | YNWA0 -
Is it possible to set a Goal conversion tracking from a subdomain to a root domain?
Hi Mozzers, Here is an issue I am going through: I have a root domain(www.example.com) that is the core website where you are able to schedule a service I have a subdomain (sub.example.om) that is part of content strategy offering free tips and follows a different branding strategy. There are internal links from sub to root domain I have a GA subdomain tracking code installed on every page for both domains I would love to set goal tracking on GA for visitors coming to my subdomain, then going to root domain and then schedule a sevices? Is this possible? If it is, can someone show me a How To because I tried it anddidn't work? Thanks mozzers!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Does Anyone have tips or resources for Adwords Re-targeting Campaigns?
Hey everyone, I have a retargetting campaign with a 0.09% CTR, a 1.04% conversion rate, and a fairly high Cost per conversion. I was wondering if anyone has any tips, resources, ideas, etc. as to how to improve our campaign? Links to external resources would be great. Thank you!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Adwords Tracking
Hi, With Adwords conversion tracking is it worth allow Analytics data in as well? Does that confuse the adwords tracking data? Does it only include Analytics data that has been set up for conversion tracking? I hope i am asking the right questions 🙂
Conversion Rate Optimization | | wood1e19680 -
Adwords Conversion Optimiser
OK Mozers! Here's the situation (my parents went away on a weeks vacation...) • I am managing an online furniture retail website Infurn .com • Our budget is 500 euro per day and we need basically 20% cost per sale and im hovering at 30 - 35% • I recently was given the opportunity to participate in The Conversion Optimiser which allows you to set a desired CPA and Google works its magic geting you that target by adjusting your bids accordingly using historical campaign data. • Is this something I should use? Or should I continue to hone my ad groups, bids, products, landing pages, and ad copy until I reach my 15 - 20% CPA goal? Thanks!
Conversion Rate Optimization | | TheGrid0 -
Can anyone recommend software for recording phone calls through Adwords?
Hey Mozzers, I want to start recording phone calls as a result of PPC campaigns. Can anyone recommend an easy to implement system for setting this in place which will allow me to track calls placed as a result of PPC advertising. The ability to record the calls for training purposes would be a bonus. Thanks in advance Geoff
Conversion Rate Optimization | | SEM-Freak0