AdWords is receiving an update, or more of a notice. Customers and users of AdWords may have noticed, or will notice, a new alert in their accounts. What does this alert say? That there have been changes to Enhanced CPC bidding.
What is Enhanced CPC bidding?
For newbies to Adwords, Enhanced Cost-per-Click (CPC) is a bid strategy that automatically changes and adjusts your bids for clicks to help maximize your sales or conversions on your website.
Example:
Let’s pretend you sell candy and you have set your max CPC for $5.00 with ECPC bidding turned on. If the AdWords system sees an auction that looks like someone may buy candy on your site, it might set your bid to $1.00 for that auction. If the ECPC sees a different auction where the customer may not purchase your product, it will lower your bid to %0.50 for that auction.
What Does the Notice Say?
The notice that Adwords users are saying says “Enhanced CPC (ECPC) bidding now has more flexibility when adjusting your bids to help you get more conversions.” In short, with this change to Enhanced CPC bidding, there is no longer a bid cap. Prior to this, ECPCs had a some bid flexibility, only increasing the bids 30% above the Max CPC as it was tied into the Max CPC.
What Does This Mean for AdWords?
Going forward, Adwords will automatically adjust to “fully account for differences in conversion rates across dimensions like audience and location.” So to break it up, ECPC will now look closely at the location and audience targeting. The AdWords algorithm, or system, will looks for patterns of clicks and conversions while comparing them to your past results. With the new updates, if specific locations have more sales, the algorithm will know and continue feeding ads to that spot. This is why the conversion tracking must be enabled to use ECPC as this is how the date filters through.
This means advertisers, or Google’s customers, no longer have to set bid adjustments to adjust for those types of dimensions as Google will be handling that from here on out.
However, if you already use your device bid adjustments and there is a criteria that Google is not meeting we suggest that you continue to use it. This can be applied to mobile and other devices as ECPS will not adjust for those differences.
Another enhancement will benefit the Search and Display campaigns. Now ECPC will help you increase the conversions while keeping your cost-per-conversions the same. Also, ECPC will help increase your conversions in shopping while maintaining your same overall spend.
How Do I Use Enhanced CPC?
Before you get started you will need to enable your conversion tracking. Without it enabled you can not use the ECPC.
- Sign in to your AdWords account.
- From your Campaigns tab, click the name of the campaign you want to work with.
- Click the Settings tab.
- Find the “Bid strategy” section. Click Edit.
- Choose Manual CPC bidding from the drop-down, and check the Enable Enhanced CPC option.
- When you choose ECPC, AdWords automatically sets your ad rotation setting to “optimize for conversions,” even if it’s currently set to “optimize for clicks.”
- Select Apply.
To do that you must chose a conversion source(s) that will help you track your ad leads. You can set up conversions for:
- Websites
- Apps
- Phones
- Imports
You can also use the ECPC for Shopping by setting up a shopping campaign.
Has the Change to Adwords Already Happened?
For some people it may have but Google will be rolling out, fully, the changes starting in June. Google suggests, on their support page, to continue monitoring your performance and adjusting your bids as necessary until then. When the change finally takes place on your account the algorithm will be able to analyze your results from the past and use it to get better results going forward, hopefully generating new sales for you.
Managing Google AdWords Enhanced Bidding
Understanding how AdWords Enhanced CPC Bidding may effect your current campaigns, now’s the time to review your campaigns and make sure that your hitting target goals. Leveraging Adwords Enhanced CPC is an additional opportunity to grow the effectiveness of your paid search campaigns. Like any paid search campaigns, tracking and monitoring performance is key for measuring success.
OperationROI is committed to helping your business identify and implement new opportunities on AdWords. For more information on building successful paid search campaigns, contact us today at 1-888-277-5429 or by filling out our contact form to learn more.
Not Using ECPC for Google Shopping Campaigns? Contact Us Today!
