In this presentation, Hanapin’s Stephanie White and Acquisio’s Nessa Plotkin team up to talk all things bidding, and to share their experience – both powers and struggles – with bidding. You’ll leave with many action items to implement in your PPC accounts.

1. 1
www.dublindesign.com
The Pros and Cons
of PPC Bidding
HOSTED BY:

2. Presenters
• Nessa Plotkin
– Director of Service and Performance at Acquisio
– @acquisio
Stephanie White
– Senior Account Manager at Hanapin Marketing
– PPC Hero Blogger
– @StephaniePPCPro

3. – Run the world’s most popular PPC blog
and conference.
– We manage and optimize global paid
search, paid social, and display programs.
– Within 12 months, brands can expect a
250% increase in their growth trajectory.
Who is Hanapin?

4. Our Clients

5. Who is Acquisio?
● $1 billion/year ad spend under management,
with 2.5 million campaign adjustments per day
for 400 int’l clients running over 300,000
campaigns
● First SaaS company to apply advanced machine
learning technology to paid advertising
● Leading name in PPC management software
and optimization
● Based out of Montreal, Canada, the AI hub
We empower business owners and those who serve them to thrive in
the changing digital economy. We do this by using award-winning
machine learning to optimize advertising budgets.
— Marc Poirier, CEO @ Acquisio

6. Our Clients & Results

7. Join the Conversation
Include the hashtag #thinkppc in
your Twitter tweets.
Or use the webinar question box
to send us questions.

8. Live Poll Question #1
How long have you been in PPC?
#thinkppc
A. Less than 3 years
B. 3-5 years
C. 5-10 years
D. 10-15 years
E. 15+

9. Automated
Versus Manual
Bidding

10. Automated or Manual?
In SEM, there are two main bidding methodologies:
● Automated Bidding
○ Using third-party tools like Acquisio Turing for BBM
● Manual Bidding
○ Setting the bids manually at the Publisher level (AdWords, Bing etc.)

11. Automated or Manual?
Which is better?
● No blanket solution
● Each campaign is unique
● There are pros and cons to each strategy
In many cases, the best bidding methodology is
determined by the type of account in question
and specific advertising goals.

12. Pros & Cons of Manual
Bidding
Defining Manual Bidding
● Campaign Managers adjust bids on ad groups and keywords at
the publisher level
● Manual bidding puts you in the driver seat
● Requires campaign managers to understand the auction well

13. Pros & Cons of Manual
Bidding
Pros
1. Full control over bids
2. Can react quickly to sudden
changes in the auction
3. More granular-level optimization
possible

14. Pros & Cons of Manual
Bidding
Cons
1. Time needed to properly optimize,
especially across many accounts
2. The larger the account, the larger
the challenge
3. Human error factor

15. Pros & Cons of Automated Bidding
Defining Automated Bidding
● Automated bidding is all about automation and machine learning
● Campaign managers set targets and budget constraints
● Optimization algorithms make decisions to meet marketing goals
● Saves time, but can be limiting

16. Pros & Cons of Automated Bidding
Pros
1. Efficiency
2. Saves time by taking over bulk bid
and budget control
3. Ideal for large complex accounts
4. The more data, the better

17. Pros & Cons of Automated Bidding
Cons
1. Automatic bidding is not truly
“automatic”
2. Can lack flexibility
3. If you don’t have data this can be a
barrier to entry
4. Not ideal for small accounts with
very low volume

18. Pros & Cons of Automated Bidding
When Automated Bidding Wins
A mid size agency with 189 accounts and 1,140 campaigns, Acquisio Turing™
increased performance and managed budgets across AdWords and Bing Ads:
Total March 2018 Daily Average
Validate and Adjusted Budgets 1,174,394 37,884
Validated and Adjusted Bids 743,170 23,973
Validated and Corrected Settings 1,467,040 47,324
Totals: 3,384,604 109,181

19. Conversion
Tracking &
Automated
Bidding

20. Conversion Tracking & Auto Bidding
Is your conversion data
100% accurate?
● Transactions
● Leads/form completions
● Phone calls

21. Conversion Tracking & Auto Bidding
Automated bidding is only as accurate as your data. If you are
missing conversion tracking options, auto-bidding could make
changes that have a negative impact on performance.
For Example:
Check your conversion counts:
● Leads - one conversion per count
● Transactions - every conversion counted

22. Bid Modifiers &
Automated
Bidding

23. Conversion Tracking & Auto Bidding
Consider removing
existing modifiers before
deploying a new bidding
strategy. Modifiers will
influence bids and may not
provide a full picture of the
performance of the
strategy.

24. Automated
Bidding Options

25. Different Bid Strategies
Auto Bidding Options:
● Enhanced CPC (ECPC)
● Target ROAS
● Target CPA
● Maximize Conversions
● Maximize Clicks
● Target Search Page Location
● Target Outranking Share
● Third Party Bid Management

26. Pros of Auto Bid Strategies
Pros
1. System auto adjusts based on specific strategy goals
2. Auto bid strategies may help reduce wasteful spending
3. Great option for complex accounts or shopping campaigns
4. Bid strategies factor in all data (time, day, geography, device)

27. Cons of Auto Bid Strategies
Cons
1. Bid strategies can take 2-3 weeks to ramp up
2. Low converting campaigns may lack data for specific bid strategies
3. Less effective on campaigns with sporadic conversions or lag time
4. May be less effective for short-term or time crunch campaigns

28. Drafts & Experiments
Experiments are a great option to test new bid strategies
on 50% of your traffic

29. Enhanced CPC (ECPC)
ECPC raises/lowers manual bids to improve conversions
One account spend increased by 30%, conversions improved by 55%, CPL was 16% lower.

30. Pros & Cons of ECPC
Pros
1. Raises/Lowers manual bids automatically
2. ECPC is looking for auctions likely to convert
3. More effective on campaigns with more history
Cons
1. Conversion tracking must be enabled to use ECPC
2. ECPC is constrained by your Max CPC bids
3. Less effective on brand new or short-term campaign

31. Maximize Clicks
Maximize clicks is one option to help improve your click-
volume while staying your set budget.
One account spend increased by 90%, conversions improved by 345%, CPL was 57% lower.

32. Target ROAS
Target ROAS is one bid strategy for converting
campaigns when maximizing revenue is the focus.

33. Target CPA
Target CPA is great bid strategy for campaigns where
maintaining a specific CPA is the primary concern.

34. Offers!
A. I’d like a 15-min 1-on-1 with Nessa from Acquisio to
talk bidding strategies
B. I’d like to stay up-to-date on Hanapin’s all-PPC
conference, Hero Conf.
C. I’d like both!
D. No, thanks.

35. Live Q&A Time!

37. Thank you for attending our webinar!
#thinkppc
Contact Hanapin Directly: marketing@hanapinmarketing.com
Contact Acquisio Directly: acquisio-marketing@acquisio.com
Hanapin Marketing | The PPC Agency of Experts Behind PPC Hero and Hero Conf