How to Use Automation in Google Ads: Guide From PPC Expert

Automated Bidding

Google Ads offers several types of automated bidding that help optimize your ad campaigns based on your goals. Let's look at 3 major ones:

1. Target Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

This strategy is aimed at achieving conversions at a pre-set price. The system automatically adjusts bids to achieve the maximum number of conversions at a set cost. It’s ideal for campaigns where a stable cost per conversion is important, and the result is maximized with a limited budget.

2. Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Unlike CPA, this strategy is aimed at maximizing ad revenue at a set level of profitability. Google Ads will adjust bids to ensure the desired ROAS. This strategy is suitable for businesses that prioritize revenue rather than just conversions, such as eCommerce.

3. Maximize Clicks

This strategy focuses on attracting as many clicks as possible within the set budget. Maximize Clicks is good for situations where you want to increase website traffic or brand awareness without focusing on conversions.

How to Choose a Bid Strategy Based on Your Goals

• To increase traffic, use Maximize Clicks if you want to get as many visitors to your website as possible.
• To control costs and get conversions, choose Target CPA, especially if your budget is limited, and it’s critical to keep the cost of each conversion within a certain limit.
• To maximize profits, use Target ROAS when you want to achieve a certain level of return on advertising.

Google’s Performance Max Campaigns

Performance Max is the campaign type in Google Ads that allows advertisers to reach all Google channels in a single campaign. The campaign uses machine learning to automatically optimize all available ad formats (Search, YouTube, Gmail, Display Network, and others). This allows you to significantly increase your reach while minimizing the effort of creating separate ad campaigns for each channel.

Here’s how it works. Performance Max uses machine learning algorithms to analyze and process data about users, their behavior, and preferences, which helps automate the selection and adjustment of ads. The campaign automatically finds the optimal combinations of creatives and channels to achieve specified goals, such as maximizing conversions, increasing return on ad spend (ROAS), or reducing cost per acquisition (CPA).
Here are the benefits of Performance Max:

• Increased reach. Performance Max allows an advertiser to use all ad formats and Google channels, including Search Networks, Display Network, YouTube, Gmail, Discover. This allows you to reach a wider audience without being limited to one type of advertising.
• Conversion optimization. The campaign automatically selects the most effective formats and channels to achieve optimal results. This means that the system can adjust ad impressions and bids in real time based on data and user behavior to improve results.
• Saving time. With Performance Max, you can significantly reduce the time spent setting up and managing campaigns, as the algorithms do everything for you. This is especially useful for brands and marketers who do not have the time or resources to manage several separate campaigns.

It is important to remember that Performance Max does not have to work in isolation. It can be integrated with other campaign types, such as Search campaigns or YouTube campaigns. In this case, Performance Max helps to further expand your reach and improve efficiency, while simultaneously giving you the ability to effectively manage different aspects of your advertising strategy.

Basic Rules for Google Ads Automation and How to Monitor Effectiveness

Automation in Google Ads can really simplify campaign management, but in order for it to be effective, you need to set up clear goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). Without clear guidelines, the system will not be able to correctly set up campaigns for the desired results, and risks leading to erroneous data and incorrect optimization.

1. Setting up clear goals and KPIs

For automation to work for you, you need to define the main goals of the advertising campaign and link them to specific metrics. For example:

• Target cost per conversion (CPA) – if your goal is to reduce the cost per conversion, then you need to set the appropriate parameters for automatic bid adjustments.
• Target return on ad spend (ROAS) – if your priority is to increase advertising revenue, set up the system to maximize ROAS.

Clear goals allow the system to optimize bids, impressions, and ads to achieve the specified results.

2. Tips for tracking results

To control your automation, it is important to regularly analyze the results. Use the following approaches to evaluate performance:

• Analyze reports and historical data. Google Ads provides detailed performance reports that allow you to evaluate how your campaigns and automated strategies are performing over time. Based on this data, you can draw conclusions about which settings work best.
• Use Google Analytics. To track results more accurately and understand how user behavior on your site relates to actions in your ad campaigns, integrate Google Analytics. This will allow you to receive detailed information about conversions, traffic sources, and user paths.

I always keep in mind that automation is not an end goal, but a tool for achieving optimal results. A/B testing of different variations of automated settings (such as bids, targeting, or ad formats) will help you find the most effective combinations for your business. Use regular testing to adjust campaign parameters and improve results over time.

How to Avoid Over-Reliance on Automation

Over-reliance on Google Ads automation can lead to consequences that you don’t want. As I’ve already mentioned, it’s essential to maintain a balance between automatic settings and manual control in order to maintain flexibility and ensure optimal results.

1. Check on the overall overview of the campaign regularly

Automation can simplify routine tasks, but without regular monitoring and intervention, it can lead to undesirable results. The system is based on algorithms, and although it can effectively optimize bids and targeting, it cannot always take into account all the nuances. These can be seasonal fluctuations, changes in consumer behavior, or external factors. Maintain an overall overview of your campaigns and regularly check their status. This allows you to identify problems in time and adjust strategies, for example, when the cost per click increases or conversions decrease. 

2. Monitor for signs that automation is not working as expected

In order to intervene in time and adjust the campaign, it’s essential to be able to recognize when the automation is not producing the desired results. Here are some signs to look out for:

• Sharp increase in cost per click (CPC). If the system automatically increases bids, this can lead to a significant increase in the cost per click. If the CPC becomes too high, it is worth checking the settings of the automatic strategy.
• Decrease in traffic quality. Automation can lead to attracting less relevant traffic if the algorithm was unable to correctly assess the target audience. This can manifest as a decrease in conversions and increase in bounce rates.
• Increasing CPA without improving results. If the target cost per conversion begins to increase, but the ROI does not increase, this may be an indicator that the system is not optimizing the campaign effectively enough.

3. Balance automation with manual control

To effectively manage campaigns, it is important not to rely on automation only. Here are some tips to balance between automatic settings and manual control:

• Regular check-ins. Even if you use automated strategies, it is important to regularly check the results and intervene if necessary. For example, you can manually adjust bids, targeting, or select certain audience segments to improve the quality of traffic.
• Use hybrid approaches. Combining automated strategies with manual settings can be most effective. For example, you can use automated strategies to manage bids, but manually adjust targeting based on current market conditions or seasonal changes.

Test and adjust. Constant A/B testing will help you understand how automation and manual control work together. By experimenting with different settings, you can find the optimal combination that will bring maximum results.