What Do the Different Bidding Options Mean in Google Ads and Which Bid Strategy is Best?

Manual cost per click (CPC) bidding is the original bidding strategy that I mentioned in the above introduction. With the Manual CPC option you set a maximum bid for different ad groups, placements, and keywords. 

This strategy is the one I most commonly use for my own campaigns and for my clients' campaigns. It requires some experience to understand how to set bids at the most profitable level. And you need to be willing to commit time to monitoring your results and fine-tuning your bids based on how all your different keywords perform.

But on the plus side, Manual CPC bidding gives you lots of control over your expenses and it allows you to scale your campaigns by increasing the maximum cost per click for high-performing keywords.

The Manual CPC bidding option can be combined with Enhanced Cost Per Click (ECPC) bidding.

Enhanced CPC allows Google to automatically increase or decrease your manual bids for a particular auction if it thinks that's in your best interests.

For example, with ECPC enabled, Google can increase your bid in situations where its algorithm suggests you have a strong chance of getting a conversion from a particular search query.

So sometimes you'll pay more than the maximum bid you set and sometimes you might pay a lot less. But Google will try to ensure that your average CPC doesn't exceed your maximum bid.

By using ECPC you can avoid wasting money on trying to rank for search terms that are too competitive, by letting Google lower the bidding. And you can benefit from your bids being increased automatically when there is lower competition and you have a higher chance of getting a conversion.

The Target Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) bid strategy can help you when your goal is to get more conversions from your Google Ads campaigns.

Before you start using this option, you need to know how much money you can spend per conversion to be profitable. For example, if you make an average of £100 profit per conversion, you need to be pay less than this amount for each conversion that Google Ads generates.

Target CPA is an automated bidding option. If you use it, Google will automatically set your bids in such a way as to try to get you the maximum number of conversions whilst keeping within the CPA limit that you've specified.

Target ROAS is a bidding option that aims to get you a higher conversion value based on the return that you want to achieve from your ad spend.

You set the Target ROAS bid as a percentage. For example, if you wanted to get £5 worth of conversion value back for every £1 spent, your Target ROAS would be 500%.

Once you have set your Target ROAS, Google automatically optimises your bids at auction time to try to achieve your desired result.

This is a simple bidding option where you set a maximum daily budget, and then Google tries to get as many conversions for you as it can within that budget.

For example, if you have a £100 daily budget, Google will not bid for expensive conversions that would use up most of your budget in one go.

Your daily budget has to be reasonable for the result that you expect. If you budget is unrealistically low, your ads will not get enough impressions.

When you select this bidding strategy, Google will try to deliver as many clicks as possible within the daily budget that you set. It is an automatic bidding strategy that is focused on generating more traffic for a website, regardless of whether that traffic converts.

Target Search Page Location is a Google Ads bidding strategy where you instruct Google to set your bids at a level which will mean your ads achieve a certain position in the paid search results.

There are two targets you can select from - either to have your ads appear anywhere on the first page of the search results, or to have your ads appear at the top of the first page.

Bear in mind though, that Google says that these placements are not guaranteed.

This automated bidding strategy is the one to use if your goal is to beat a specific competitor in the Google Ads auction.

To use Target Outranking Share bidding you provide the competitor's domain name, and specify how often you want to outrank them and what your maximum bid is. Then Google will adjust your bids so as to increase your chances of outranking the ads of your competitor.

Keep in mind that the more often you successfully outrank your competitor, the more money you will spend on your ads.

If your goal is to increase brand awareness, you can choose to focus on getting more ad impressions for specific keywords by using Target Impression Share bidding. It works better with broad keywords because you can reach a wider audience.

When you use the Target Impression Share bid strategy, it's possible to set a 100% impression share target. Your ad will then be shown to every user whose search query matches to your targeted keywords.

If you want to reduce your costs, you can decrease the percentage of impression share to target.

CPM stands for cost per mille, but it is more commonly  referred to as cost-per-thousand-impressions bidding (mille being the French word for a thousand).

When you use the CPM option, you're bidding an amount that you are willing to pay for every thousand ad impressions. An impression is recorded every time your ad gets displayed, regardless of whether or not it gets clicked. 

The CPM bidding option is not available for campaigns that show ads on the search results page of Google. It can only be used on the Display Network and for YouTube Ads.

vCPM stands for viewable cost-per-thousand-impressions. It's another Google Ads bidding option that's only available for YouTube Ads and for ads on the Display Network. 

A Display Network ad is only counted as having had a viewable impression when 50% of the ad is shown on screen for one second or longer.

A video ad on YouTube has to play continuously for two seconds or longer before it is counted as a viewable impression.

Cost Per View (CPV) bidding in Google Ads is available only for video advertising. You pay based on the number of views or interactions your video ad gets on the TrueView video platform.

A view is defined as someone watching your video ad for a minimum of 30 seconds. The interactions that you're charged for are call-to-action clicks, overlay clicks, cards, and companion banners. 

When you create a video ad with CPV bidding, you set a maximum amount that you want to pay for each view or interaction. You can start with a low bid in the beginning and increase it later to adjust and scale your video ad campaigns.