Reply To: Manual CPC bidding, what?

[loriscb]

Manual CPC with high clicks, 1 conversion, thousands spent = the agency is incompetent or malicious.

Manual CPC means they’re bidding blind:
– No conversion data guiding bids
– No quality score optimization
– Probably bidding on broad match garbage keywords

**Why this is catastrophic for service business:**
– Service = high-intent keywords only (“hire lawyer”, “buy service”)
– Manual CPC bids same for high-intent + low-intent
– Result: Wasting budget on “free legal advice” searchers who never buy

**What competent agency would do:**
1. Max Conversions or tCPA (let algorithm optimize toward ACTUAL sales)
2. Negative keyword list (block low-intent searches)
3. Search term report analysis (kill keywords that don’t convert)

**Red flags in their setup (I’d bet money on these):**
– Broad match keywords without smart bidding
– No negative keyword list
– No conversion tracking setup properly
– Or worse: optimizing for clicks, not conversions

Manual CPC has ONE use case: brand protection campaigns (bidding on your own brand name). For lead gen service business? It’s either incompetence or they’re maximizing their % fee by maximizing spend.

Fire them. Any decent PPC pro would’ve switched to automated bidding after 20 conversions or 2 weeks, whichever came first.