Google AdWords Bidding Strategy

[DilipShaw]

I would like to know which is a better option for bidding and why?

1.Going from high to low, or
2.Going from low to high.

[SEMblahblah]

A simple approach is to start with slightly higher bids to gain better positions, better ctrs and hence a better QS, hopefully (I'm not taking other factors for QS assessment into account here)... which could also lead to increasing no. of impressions if Google feels that the users find your lp relevant. You could then see your cpcs going down gradually for the same positions. You can then choose to lower your bids if needed.

[xurxo]

I agree, when starting from scratch, initially higher bids can help increase the amount of traffic you receive not to mention increase your CTR which can be a good thing especially to help boost your quality score.

Just make sure to take care of all the other factors when doing this so that you don't spend unnecessarily:
- Research and include Negative keywords
- Tightly themed adgroups with generally no more than 20-50 keywords per adgroup
- Relevant landing pages with unique content, easy to navigate and transparent privacy policy
- Use of match types (Broad, Phrase, Exact)
- Proper geo-targeting if applicable
- More than one ad text, but not more than 2-3 running at a time per ad group.
- You might want to initially let Google optimize your ad rotation to display the one with the higher CTR more often and then rotate them evenly after you've established a decent CTR so you can conduct proper A/B tests on them
- Depending on the type of product or service you're offering, opt out of the search partners network so that you can more quickly identify problem areas that directly impact your quality score (According to Google, the search partner network does not impact QS). Rumor has it that Google plans to disclose performance separately for Google search traffic and Search partner traffic, but until then, you're probably better off opting out at the beginning till you have a chance to optimize things.
- If you want to get into the content network, be sure to create a separate campaign so you can manage it separately.
- As an alternative to boosting bids manually, you can also experiment with the advanced features of ad scheduling where you can choose to boost bids by a percentage. This is great if you want to do this in the short-term at the campaign level. If you want to boost bids at the adgroup or keyword level then this option is not ideal.

There are other things to look at but this is a good start to make sure that you don't bleed too much in the beginning and hurt your quality score in the process.

[DilipShaw]

Thanks xurxo. You almost wrote a mini how to bid guideline for adwords.

[xurxo]

My pleasure, sorry if I want overboard with the how to guide. It's just that with adwords, there is often no simple answer without taking into consideration a variety of other factors that can skew results in all different directions.

And without looking at things holistically within the system, it's easy to make false judgments or jump to the wrong conclusions.

Don't be shy to let me know if I ever run off topic or said differently provide an answer that is not very "relevant". :)