Nothing is more frustrating than competitors hijacking your best terms.
The holiday season is particularly vulnerable to this, as brands scramble for market share.
This month’s question is especially tricky around the holiday season. Rakesh of Virudhunagar asks:
“I have a question regarding the same keyword I use and big brands. As a merchandise company, I use the general keyword ‘gift for her/her’. As the holidays approach, I can notice that CPC (Target Return on Ad Spend – BS) is increasing for these keywords.
In Auction Visions, my competitors are not bidding on me, but Etsy and Amazon. CPC increased by 200% – wow. What is the best way to handle this? Manual bid? Or any other bidding strategy that will work? “
We’ll tackle this from a Google Ads point of view, however, many of these strategies apply to Microsoft Ads as well.
Tip 1: Use keyword variants
The most direct way to bypass expensive auctions is to use different keywords.
Misspellings and synonyms will lead you to the same search terms. If the big brands are jacking up the auction prices for the most popular variants, consider opting for the less popular ones.
For example, if the dear term is “I got her the gift,” you might consider the following:
- Gifts for her/him.
- Gifts for her/him.
- Gifting to her/him.
- Submission to her/him.
- gifts for him/her.
Test one by one on the match type used by the original keyword.
During testing, pause the original keyword.
By pausing it, you will be able to keep your data and come back to it if the new variable does not work.
Tip 2: Adjust your bidding strategy
Automatic and Smart Bidding has a lot of benefits.
However, it is very easy for your CPC to go up based on your bid target.
Conversion-based bidding strategies are the most susceptible to spikes because conversions carry a lot of weight.
Using a bidding strategy that sets a maximum bid for your bid is the most direct way to ensure your budget doesn’t get out of control.
However, if your maximum bid is too low, you might kill the volume.
As long as your maximum bid is 10% or less of your daily budget, you should be able to get enough clicks in your day to lead to sales (provided your bid-to-budget ratios are in line with your industry).
Tip 3: Use audience exclusions/targets
The masses are often overlooked in the auction price discussion.
Although True Audiences are built into Smart Bidding, they can be used for exclusion or exclusive targeting as well.
Consider using local audiences such as in-market and affinity to weed out people who will not be a good fit for your products/services.
You can also use first-party audiences, such as matching customers and website visitors, to focus your budget on warm prospects or save on people who already know you.
The final takeaway
Big brands will always be a variable in auction prices.
However, you need not get drawn into a bidding war.
Pursuing cheaper variants, finding bids, and using audiences to focus budget will help open cheaper auctions to improve return on investment (ROI).
Do you have a question about PPC? Submit via this form or tweet me at @navahf using the hashtag #AskPPC. See you next month!
More resources:
- Do manual adjustments still make sense with automatic bidding?
- How to make the most of reporting search terms in the age of privacy and automation
- PPC 101: A Complete Guide to the Fundamentals of Pay-Per-Click Marketing
Featured Image: Paolo Bobetta/Search Engine Magazine
