Google AdWords made some changes to their automated bidding programs and has disabled the ability to use automated bidding with enhanced auto bid features.

What Exactly Changed?

Previous eCPC bidding as a strategy has been altered by Google. Previously Google would auto bid and adjust the bids automatically based on historical performance data. Sometimes as much as 30% more than your maximum cost per click setting.

Current eCPC is now a manual keyword or ad group bid with no automatic bid adjustment. Google will now simply raise or lower Your Own bid by historic conversion performance. We are finding that this new automatic bidding approach is more expensive for clients and requires a greater level of oversight. Setting a bid by ad group instead of by keyword is driving up client bid costs even on non-converting keywords.

Max Clicks, Google says that this is the previous auto bid setting that the old eCPC bidding was, but now unfortunately does not contain a component for a review of historical conversion data. This bid strategy simply tries to get the most clicks, not the most potentially converting clicks.

These bidding automation changes have certainly impacted the performance for clients. Although in some case they may give greater control to some accounts over the cost per click for others they are negatively impacting results.

We work to mitigate performance issues caused by these changes by using bid automation rules, greater analysis and oversight. Rewarding our managed accounts with improved performance metrics. Find out how McCord Web Services can help your AdWords account achieve profitability.