4 PPC Bidding Strategies to Maximize ROI, Check Them Out!

PPC advertising is one type of paid advertising that remains a mainstay for many businesses. However, in reality, some PPC campaigns still often fail. Some of them run out of advertising budget quickly but have minimal conversions, while others have a high cost per click but get no customers.

Then, what is wrong? In this article, you will find several conditions that trigger the failure of PPC campaigns, as well as various PPC bidding strategies that are known to be effective in bringing profits to businesses. Check out the following information! 

What Is PPC?

PPC (Pay Per Click) is a paid digital advertising model (paid ads) where the cost is calculated based on the number of clicks received. PPC ads come in various formats, including text, images, videos, or a combination of all three. 

This advertising model generally appears on search engines (Google, Bing), websites, or social media. When a PPC ad is clicked, the audience will be directed to a specific website, landing page, or application.

PPC is an advertising model that is widely chosen by advertisers because it only attracts audiences who have the potential to become customers. In addition, the costs incurred are also relatively smaller when compared to the profits obtained.

Why Do PPC Campaigns Often Fail?

Despite offering advantages such as specific audience targeting and advertising cost efficiency, advertisers often experience difficulties and even failure in running pay-per-click ads. Here are some of the reasons that usually underlie these failures:

1. Not Tracking Conversions

Running PPC ads without actively tracking conversions often leads to failure. This is because your ads will continue to run, but you have no way of knowing whether they are profitable or not.

Conversion tracking tells you how many people took valuable actions after clicking on your ad. Valuable actions refer to actions that lead to a purchase, such as adding to a shopping cart, signing up for a free trial, or booking a demo.

If you have not been tracking conversions, start doing so now! First, determine the metrics or actions you want to track. Next, use Google Ads/Meta Ads Manager + Google Tag Manager to install tracking “tags” on your website. Lastly, run tests to ensure that tracking is working correctly.

2. Weak Copywriting

Copywriting plays a huge role in the success of PPC ads. If a campaign is executed with weak copywriting, it has a high potential of being skipped by the audience because they are not interesting.

Some common problems in copywriting that could potentially ruin pay-per-click advertising include:

• Unclear headlines.
• Use of overly general words.
• Vague offers and CTAs (calls to action).
• Failure to directly address the pain points or problems faced by the audience.

The effects of weak copywriting include low CTR (Click Through Rate) and high CPC (Cost Per Click).

To solve this, you need to write copy from the perspective of your audience or target consumers. Understand their pain points, then create clear and relevant headlines. Do not forget to use copywriting formulas, such as BAB (Before-After-Bridge) or PAS (Problem-Agitate-Solution).

3. Overly Spread Budget

If you often divide your PPC budget among many keywords or campaigns, do not be surprised if your ads lose their power. 

If your advertising budget is limited, but you divide it among many campaigns, the data collected will be relatively small and complicate the ad bidding and Learning Phase processes. As a result, campaign performance will be low. The right solutions for this situation are:

• Allocate your budget to high-intent keywords (keywords that indicate people are ready to take action or make a purchase) and campaigns that have proven to be effective.
• Use dayparting (ad scheduling) and geo-targeting (ad location targeting) to ensure your ad budget is used at the right time and place.
• Start with 1–2 specific themed campaigns, then expand. Avoid using too many campaigns at once.
• Pay attention to customer behavior based on the device used, then adjust your bidding strategy to be more efficient.

4. Poor Landing Page Design

A landing page can be considered poorly designed if it has low speed, the text is difficult to read, it is not mobile-friendly, or the user flow is wordy and unclear. Moreover, if the content displayed on the landing page does not match the ad copy before it is clicked, you can lose the audience's trust instantly.

Therefore, advertisers must test the landing page before using it for advertising. This testing can be done by varying the headline or the position of the CTA button to find out which version is most effective.

In fact, there are tools available to assess the quality of landing page design, such as Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity. Both can help you view heatmaps, which show the areas on the landing page that are frequently clicked or ignored by the audience.

Since you, as an advertiser, have to pay for every click, do not let the landing page that serves as the destination appear less optimal.

Read also: A Complete Guide on How to Make an Attractive Landing Page

The Impact of PPC Bidding Strategy on Ad's Success

In digital marketing, there are several bidding strategies commonly used to run PPC ads. The following are the effects of each bidding strategy on ad success:

1. Comparison of Bidding Strategy Effectiveness

Basically, there are several bidding strategies in PPC, namely smart bidding, auto bidding, and manual bidding. 

Smart bidding is an automated strategy based on machine learning, such as Max Conversion Value. Auto bidding is a simpler automated strategy, such as Maximize Clicks. Meanwhile, manual bidding is a strategy where advertisers determine their own bid per click.

When comparing the three, there is no single bidding strategy that is universally superior, as each has its own strengths and weaknesses. 

For example, smart bidding is most efficient when advertisers focus on profit, while auto bidding is more suitable for increasing traffic or awareness. On the other hand, manual bidding is the right strategy if advertisers have full control and sufficient time to perform manual optimization.

2. Adding Bidding Targets

In fact, adding targets to a bidding strategy is more often detrimental than beneficial, except in manual bidding or ROAS targets. Adding targets when bidding actually has the potential to reduce the flexibility of the algorithm, which in turn makes the campaign results less optimal.

So, if you already have accurate data on revenue or profit and can set bids in detail, go ahead and set a target. But if you do not, it is better to run a strategy without a target because that is a more efficient way to optimize your campaign.

3. The Effect of Nominal Budget

Budget greatly affects the success of pay-per-click advertising, but its effect can vary depending on each bidding strategy. Here is a detailed explanation:

• Smart bidding: Can still be implemented with a low budget, as long as there is enough conversion data.
• Manual bidding: Performance will improve as the budget increases.
• Auto bidding: Usually chosen by advertisers with low budgets because the main focus is on getting as many clicks as possible, not conversions or profits.

Read also: Programmatic Advertising: Types, Examples & Strategies

PPC Bidding Strategies to Maximize ROI

To maximize your Return on Investment (ROI), here are some Google Ads bidding strategies you can implement:

1. Enhanced CPC (ECPC)

Enhanced CPC can be considered a semi-automatic strategy, where you still set the CPC manually, but Google can automatically increase or decrease the bid to get more conversions.

Regarding ECPC, there are some facts you need to know. Before May 2027, Google limited automatic bid increases to a maximum of 30% above manual bids. After this rule was removed, the system can raise bids higher if the conversion opportunity is significant, as long as the average CPC remains below the max CPC. To run ECPC, try the following strategy:

• Have sufficient conversion data, at least 30 conversions per month.
• Set up conversion tracking, ideally with conversion values.

2. Manual CPC (Cost-Per-Click) Bidding

By implementing manual CPC bidding, you can determine the maximum CPC limit for each keyword. You have full control over budget allocation and campaign direction. With manual CPC bidding, you can implement the following strategies:

• If a keyword is performing well, for example, generating many conversions, you can increase its bid so that it appears more often.
• If a keyword is not performing well, which means it gets many clicks but produces no results, you can lower or stop its bid.

3. Maximize Clicks

To maximize clicks, Google will try to use the entire daily budget to get as many clicks as possible. So, this method can increase CPC if needed, so that the budget is fully used. Below are some strategies to maximize clicks:

• Choose long-tail and high-intent keywords, for example, “affordable women's running jacket size L.”
• Use maximize clicks on RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads), which targets people who have visited the site before.

4. Target CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition)

Target CPA allows advertisers to set a maximum cost per conversion. Google will then automatically adjust bids to ensure the average conversion cost aligns with the target. Here are some strategies you can implement when using Target CPA:

• Set realistic targets. Start with historical average CPA data as a reference. Note that targets that are too low cause the algorithm to struggle with bid adjustments, while targets that are too high lead to higher acquisition costs.
• Adjust your CPA target gradually, for example, within a range of 10%–20%. Also, ensure there are at least 20–30 new conversions before making any adjustments.

That is a comprehensive explanation of PPC bidding strategies and their impact on ad success. After reading the above explanation, you may start thinking about which strategy is most suitable for your business.

Before making a decision, you need to consider several crucial factors, including the availability of historical data, a realistic daily budget, audience segmentation, monitoring processes, and so on. All steps must be systematic and based on data. 

The good news is that you can use SEM Services by cmlabs to determine the best bidding strategy for your business. 

By referring to market data, realistic targets, understanding the latest algorithms, and using the right targeting methods, our expert team is ready to help maximize your search engine ads and generate positive impacts for your business.

So, are you ready to run high-performing ads that generate real sales for your business? If you have any questions about SEM Services by cmlabs or want to get the best offer, contact our team now!

Read also: What Is Budgeting Ads and How to Manage It? Check It Out!