When you’re running an AdWords campaign, there are a multitude of features that can help you improve your performance. One of the more prominent features is conditional bidding. Simply put, this feature allows you to change the cost of your chosen bid based on a variety of criteria. It’s a powerful tool for advertisers trying to maximize their ROI (Return on Investment) from their ad spend.
What is conditional bidding?
Conditional bidding allows you to set a maximum price you’re willing to spend on an AdWords ad, based on a variety of criteria. When a user clicks on your Ad, Google will check the conditions you’ve set forth in your campaign. If the user’s behavior meets the conditions you’ve specified, you’ll be charged less for this click; otherwise, you’ll be charged the maximum price.
To enable this feature, you must first set up a separate AdWords account with Google. Once you’ve done this, you can follow these steps to begin specifying your bid conditions.
Step one: Create a new campaign
Create a new campaign by navigating to AdWords > My campaigns > Create new campaign. Then, provide a name for your campaign and select CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) as your payment method.
Before you begin configuring your conditions, you should take a few minutes to go over the essentials of your ad words campaign. Make sure you’re inputting the right information for your PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign.
Step two: Set up your conditions
To begin configuring your conditions, click on Bid conditions at the top of your campaign’s dashboard. From there, you can create as many conditions as you’d like. You can set a maximum price you’re willing to pay for an ad or set a minimum price you’re willing to pay. Whatever your maximum price is, you’ll need to set a minimum price, too.
A good rule of thumb is to set both your maximum and minimum prices relatively high, at least at the start of your campaign. So, if you set a maximum price of $100 and a minimum price of $50, your effective bid will be $50. You can also set fixed-price bids or variable-price bids, which are the same except the price changes based on the performance of a keyword or search phrase. For more information on these different types of bids, check out our guide to the AdWords bid types here.
Once you’ve set your maximum price and minimum price, you can begin to add your conditions.
Step three: Add your conditions
To add a condition, click the Add a new condition button at the top of the page. This will bring you to a blank condition editor. Begin by adding the keyword or phrase you’ll be measuring against, followed by the operator you’ll be using (> or ==). Finally, you can add the figure you’ll be using for your maximum and minimum bids.
For example, if you’re running an eCommerce store and you’re measuring the performance of a product called a “black hoodie,” you could create the following condition:
- Product == black hoodie
- Operator == ==
- Maximum bid == $100
- Minimum bid == $50
As you add each condition, Google will prompt you to validate it. Simply type in the letter associated with your condition and click Validate. Once you’ve done this for all your conditions, click Save. Now, your ad words campaign is ready to create ads!
Step four: Create your first ad
To create your first ad, navigate to AdWords > My ads > Create new ad. Then, provide a unique ad title and description, followed by the URL of the website you’ll be promoting (if applicable).
Next, you’ll want to add one or two links to your ad. These are optional, but can help get more people to click on your ad. To add a link, click the + next to the link field. Then, add the URL you wish to track (for example, https://www.example.com) and click Save. Finally, set the conversion type to CPA and choose your desired currency for the bid (usually US dollars). Once you’ve done this, your ad will be ready for publication.
Now, depending on how you’ve set up your bid conditions, your Ad will either perform well or poorly. In the next section, we’ll discuss how to tweak your ad words settings to help improve your income.
How do I make my ads perform better?
While any type of advertising can be improved upon, it’s important to note that some perform much better than others. With that in mind, let’s discuss how you can make the most of your AdWords investment.
Step one: Measure and review your results
The first step in adwords is to
- Measure the success of your ad
- Review your results
- Improve your ads
- Measure the success of your ad again
- Repeat as necessary
Measuring the success of your Ad is important because it provides you with information on how well your ads are performing. To begin with, you can check out the performance of your keyword, your cost per click, and your conversion rates. These are the most basic forms of measurements, but it’s important to look at them if you want to know how well your ads are performing.
To measure the performance of your keyword, navigate to Search performance > Keyword performance > Current Keyword. Then, scroll down to The stats panel and you’ll see a chart detailing the search volume, competition, and performance of your chosen keyword. The more blue the squares, the better the performance (higher search volume, lower competition, and thus, higher income).
Next, you’ll want to review your results. This is a crucial step to increasing your income from AdWords. You can use the same tool to measure the success of your account and review your results. To do this, navigate to Campaign performance > Campaign results overview > View details. From here, you can sort your data by Cost per conversion, Clicks, and Conversions. Once you’ve reviewed your results, you can begin to improve your ads. You should do this continually for any type of advertising, but it’s especially important with PPC ads, as you’re essentially paying for each click.
Step two: Set your ad words settings
Once you’ve set up your account and begun measuring the success of your ads, it’s time to begin optimizing your settings. While there are several settings you can tweak, it’s important to note that not all settings will lead to increased performance. That’s why it’s important to measure the results of your changes (Step one) before making any major adjustments.
What are the most important settings to change?
Below, we’ve listed the settings you should focus on first (based on the information gathered in the previous section), followed by a short description of what they do.