Hi guys should I switch from manual CPC to any of the automated bidding strategies to get better Conversions.

[avisionaree]

following

[DJ_Oey]

I don’t suggest using automated bidding with a low budget and only exact match keywords. It works better for campaigns with larger budgets that utilize broader targeting, in my experience.

I can’t really say much about your performance metrics without knowing the industry, keywords, etc. but I work with a lot of B2B clients and those stats look pretty normal, especially for the first month.

I’d honestly suggest opening up targeting a bit if you’re only getting 70 impressions a month. Normally I’d say avoid broad match keywords like the plague but I’ve found they can work well in niche B2B industries if you’re using long-tail keywords. You just have to monitor the search query reports more often but I don’t normally run into many irrelevant queries. I get the impression you won’t be able to convince your CEO to try different match types though so maybe look into using dynamic search ads.

[LittleMissChap]

I would recommend a maximize conversions bid strategy if that’s your goal. I’ve seen good results with using them since Google tries to get you the most conversions at the lowest cost to try to stay within your monthly budget. I would also recommend talking to your CEO about adding phrase match keywords to your account. It sounds like your exact match keywords are pretty specific which is probably why they’re not getting too many clicks or conversions, however phrase match will open up the pool of potential customers.

With these bid strategies Google uses AI to determine which searchers have the best chance of converting. It takes about 7-14 days for the bid strategy to “learn” and gather data on your campaigns so if you go this route you might see a sudden increase in CPC or decrease in CTR for example, but it will even itself out after the learning period and you should start to see positive results.

Again, I think stressing the keyword issue with your CEO is important as they likely don’t understand how paid search works very well and may think that only exact match keywords are the way to go in order to get the most qualified traffic. If you want to see increased volume, I would recommend exact AND phrase match keywords with negative keywords. Keep an eye on the search terms report to make sure you’re not showing up for any irrelevant searches, and keep adding to your negative keyword list if you are.

I hope this helps!

[Fauxhawkism]

Sounds like you have a few different questions so I’ll try to touch on all of them:

> Is 4.7 CTR ok or should I need to worry about CTR?

Depends on the industry. For B2B I’d expect something a little higher – especially from only Exact match keywords. Ad copy is one thing, but also take a look at your quality scores associated with your keywords. Are you running responsive search ads? These at times can see higher CTRs, but I know some on here have issues with how the system picks headlines.

In terms of automated bid strategies, you don’t have nearly enough conversions to properly implement them yet. Even so, with Exact match keywords they probably won’t do much. Google likes to utilized Phrase and Broad match KWs in its automated algorithms.

What’s the CEO’s reasoning for not wanting to use anything but Exact match types? Depending on your keywords, it could be holding your campaign back – you just don’t really know until you try.

>Do you have suggestions to improve conversions?

Conversion rate has just as much to do with the landing page experience as it does the Google Ads settings. What are the user behavior metrics once they reach the site? Bounce rate, average session duration, and pages per session are all good clues to investigate.

[kt90402]

I agree with the other comments on opening up your keyword match types. I also want to emphasize that while things like top of page rate and impression share are good to measure on a manual CPC strategy to ensure your keyword bids are correct, you’ll no longer need to track those closely on an automated bid strategy. Did your CEO run google ads a few years ago perhaps?

[bdinvest]

Bidding only on EMK will have lower Impression but higer CTR%. From the search query report, you can show CEO money he is leaving on the table. He may not aware of broad match modifier, which is far better than only a broad match.
As far as CTR, your rate looks slightly lower. I too run B2B campaigns for machinery and I am getting CTR in the range of 8 to 9%. But CTR and conversion are not related directly. I have adgroups with high CTR and low conversions.
Are you using all extensions?
Can you bid for top of page?
A separate LP is a good option, but small client usually don’t agree with it. I came across a PPC agency who included LP cost within service charges.
Automatic bidding on smaller budget will not make any effect. Still, no harm in doing it for one or two months and compare it with manual bidding. I did it and didn’t get any change in the result.
Hope it helps.

[peter_vu]

The same question.