Increase conversion using the automated bidding strategy

What we advertised

We advertised the website used to carry out digital currencies deposit, withdrawal, and exchange operations in the shortest time possible without intermediaries. The website operates handling almost all payment systems available in the Russian Federation. Deposits are possible to be made even in one of the cryptocurrencies. The portal is maximally protected to carry out operations with cryptocurrencies 24 hours a day in any country of the world.

Promotion objectives

The website allows all kinds of operations exclusively after a user completes a registration procedure and creates a personal account. Therefore, sending the account registration form was the only and the main conversion.

The customer task: increase conversion rate.

What we did

On the advertising campaign creation stage:

1. We created a search campaign using a key group structure + 3 to 4 types of ads in each group + ad expansions + search remarketing. The Manual CPC bidding was the initial strategy of the campaign in the search network.
2. The CPC campaigns were created with keywords and topic targeting + Remarketing
3. In our Google Analytics account, we set up target tracking and imported customized targets into our Google AdWords account to set up conversion tracking.

At the advertising campaign optimization stage, we focused our effort to increase the conversion rates.

That is why we decided to use the automatic bidding strategy called “Maximum Conversions”. This is an AdWords smart bidding strategy which allows getting as many conversions as possible within the specified budget. It utilizes machine learning technology to optimize bids in ad auctions.

Automatic strategies offer great opportunities because 80% of the time users spend on manual, routine tasks, and only during the rest 20% of the time, they solve strategic issues.

It is important to choose smart strategies to set rates, taking the customer’s business goals into account. That is why it is necessary to clearly determine and understand the customer’s main priorities and expectations at the beginning of the cooperation.

Why do we consider automatic strategies more efficient?

It is very difficult to determine the correct bid readjustments and bid for each keyword on a long way to conversion! Smart betting strategies allow doing it for you in real time with cross-device tracking.

Considering the search auctions dynamic nature, the “right bid” is a flexible indicator. It is difficult to find the right bid for a keyword, especially if you consider that keyword bids have to change depending on the audience.

Using automatic strategies, optimization takes place, taking the specifics of each individual auction into account. Manual bidding only allows making the same bid for different segments:

• Adjustment by location
• Adjustment by device (-5% for mobile devices)
• Standard bid

Using automatic strategies, we get true optimization in real time which determines bids for each particular auction but not just “several times a day.”

To determine the bidding strategy efficiency and continue to use it on an ongoing basis, we decided to set up an experiment as part of the network search campaign. The Manual CPC bidding strategy was compared to the Maximum Conversions strategy. The experimental campaign is going on simultaneously with the initial one for some time, getting a particular share of its traffic and budget. Consequently, when you set up the experiment, you have to specify its duration and the original campaign’s traffic (and budget) share you are going to allocate for it.

The experiment was set for 2 weeks. The budget share was 50%.

As we planned to apply the Maximum Conversions strategy, we warned the customer that this strategy campaign budget is used to its fullest. Consequently, though the budget could be incompletely spent before, it is possible that the expenses will significantly increase during or after this experiment.

After the experiment continued for a week, we could sum up the first results.

The data we received were as follows:

As a consequence of the results obtained, we decided to stop the experiment and apply the “Maximum conversions” bidding strategy on an ongoing basis for the initial campaign.

Results

The following month, after we applied the “Maximum Conversions” smart bidding strategy to the initial campaign, we received the following results: