Is it better to place PPC when competition is high or low?

[smartcow]

When managing a clients PPC campaign is there any advice on throttling up and down the accounts depending on the search popularity. Let's take "wedding cake" there are obvious trends here https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=wedding cake but would you advise to spend more on Ads during the quite months as competition is low and you can get more click for less cost, or do you load up on clicks when it is more competitive/expencive .

Please don't get bogged down in the "weeding cake" keyword, I'm looking more for views on when would be best to load an account in terms of return on investment. For example would you get better quality clicks when low search volumes as opposed to high. Lets also assume that our product costs us the same all year round. I have seen different side to the story.

What are your views

[JasmineA]

Competition does matter, and the landscape does change based on different keywords. Most head terms don't have significant amounts of competition because they are too vague. Something like Wedding Cakes is not a good PPC term when you are looking to make money on your money as fast as you can.

It's always best to try bidding on the term (especially on Broad Match Modified) to see how it performs for you, but it is highly likely you will receive a low QS and a low CTR and higher CPCs which make it not as important of a term when you are looking at everything from a returns or profits perspective.

As far as low v high volumes for keywords, it's not something that I take into significant consideration unless my client is trying to get close to a specific number or is very concerned about a specific keyword. PPC is about throwing out a wide net for low, mid and high volume keywords, bidding on all of them, and learning over time what creates good return for your particular niche. What works for my business might be a horrible strategy for your business.

[Alick300]

Hi Simon,

From your question it is very clear that you want to get more clicks in less cost but spending more in quite time there is no doubt cost will reduce due to less competition but you will also get less conversion in quite months.

IMO you should bid on peak season and if your budget is tight don't use broad match use only exact match and even if you think exact match is expensive use BMM keywords and add exact match as negative keyword so you can target only long tail keyword.

To reduce CPC best option is increase QS of your keyword.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

[EGOL]

People who run PPC campaigns should be focused on the average cost for a conversion and the average profit on a sale.  These can vary wildly as traffic blasts arrive from various sources that might have purchase intent or not.  As soon as the eye is removed from the cost of what you are doing and the profit that it is producing, then a vendors shirt can be lost without knowing it.

[ClaytonJ]

Maybe more complicated decision than asked.

To me and my clients it is about market share. As you know ultimately there is usually only one winner/survivor. Law of the jungle.

google -v- bing

pepsi v coke. etc,

I suggest you use adwords as one tool in the kit to strategically gain market share at a faster rate than your competitors - however carefully monitor the cost of client acquisition. At some stages it may get too expensive to chase key Adwords in the high season - due to bulging cheque books of competitors - but stay in the hunt as long as you can afford to. Do not go head on for the "main" keywords if you cannot afford it. Also get smart if you can't afford to go head on - use social media, mail outs, editorial, long tailed keywords - fight to the death.  A favorite of mine at the moment is outbrain. Never stop thinking about stealing clicks from your competitors. But never stop marketing at any time, just do it smarter. In high season you must be seen and heard as that is what will carry you through the slow season...