In this webinar, our experts discuss the next frontier of paid search strategy, which involves leveraging machine learning automation to optimize your campaigns, no matter if they are new activations, or restructuring campaigns based on historic performance.

1. Paid Search
Enhanced Bidding
Strategies

2. Today’s Logistics
Kerry Mallett
Webinar Coordinator
Recording & slides will be sent
by tomorrow
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3. Tinuiti is the largest independent performance
marketing agency across the Triopoly.
Employees
Media managed Award-winning culture*
$2B #1 800+
3
*AdAge Best Places to Work 2019-2021

4. Some of
Our Clients
Our
Recognition
For commerce leaders of today and the future

5. Our Speakers
MILLY BEEBEE
Senior Specialist, Paid
Search
STEVE GEORGE
Senior Specialist, Paid
Search

6. Are you currently using
autobidding on your campaigns?
● I’m using autobidding on some campaigns
● I’m using autobidding on all of my campaigns
● Not yet
POLL

7. Agenda
● The Focus of SEM Strategy is Changing
● How We Do Things a Bit Differently
● Our Top Recommended Bid Strategies and
Techniques in 2021
● Q&A
7

8. Search - The History and
Future
What’s Going on in the SEM World?
8

9. The Eras of SEM Over the Last Decade+
Keywords +
Match Types
ca 2002-2010
Devices
ca 2010-12
Audiences +
Customer Match
ca 2010-2018
Machine
Learning + AI
ca 2018-?

10. Most Advertisers are Stuck on Just One…
audiences +
customer match
ca 2010-2018
machine
learning + AI
ca 2018-?
Keywords +
Match Types
ca 2002-2010
Devices
ca 2010-12
Audiences +
Customer Match
ca 2010-2018
Machine
Learning + AI
ca 2018-?

11. ● Keywords are great and all, but they aren’t
everything anymore.
● You’re not using the data you have at hand.
● Missing out improved efficiencies
● You’re spending too much time
adjusting/fidgeting with the least impactful
account elements
● You’re not using the data you already
have!!!!!
Why’s This
Wrong?

12. Bucking “Old” SEM Best Practices
12
We’ll let the machines worry about being calculators and filling
in mad libs of messaging - humans can focus on search
strategy to ensure scale and decisions that benefit the
business, not the search engine.
Today’s SEM is built on signals - what about a person’s
action/demographics makes them likely to convert?
Forcing AI is expensive and ineffective - we must give it better
inputs and (some) freedom to maximize outputs
SKAG’s + match type sculpting used to work to preserve
message accuracy. Marketers felt comfortable that Google
was showing the “right” terms from the “right” campaigns....
SEM campaigns were developed sequentially. Start with
keywords, eventually get to audiences and wrap it in AI.
Segmentation was the name of the game to maximize control
over budget flow, queries and negatives.
keywords +
match types
devices +
extensions
audiences
automation
keywords +
match types
devices + extensions
audiences
AI
automation

13. Tinuiti Search Strategy in
2021
So How Does Tinuiti Do Things Differently?
13

14. Have you restructured your
campaign in the last 12 months?
● Yes and now have more campaigns
● Yes and now have fewer campaigns
● I have not
● Restructure!? - I’ve been running the same
campaigns since 2012
POLL

15. AUTOMATION evolved
from rules-based to
Machine Learning driven,
search accounts did not.
Guide automation via
purposeful structure.
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Ushering In The Intent Era Of SEM
AUDIENCES are a proxy to
intent. The higher priority
the searcher, the wider net
we cast (e.g. broadience).
Use Google defined
Audiences + engagement
as triggers, not targets.
KW’S + MATCH TYPES
are less of a command,
more suggestion in 2021.
Responsible consolidation
yields growth + efficiency
DEVICE behavior changed
dramatically in 2020.
Identifying what searchers
want is key to providing the
right answer
Couple devices together
unless lead quality dictates
otherwise.

16. ALREADY GONE
...effectively
anyway
VISIBILITY LOSS
privacy, or
something
NOW MALLEABLE
constricting levers
SOOO 2020
responsive future
ABACUS? NO THX
calculators win!
We don’t expect keywords
to truly die, but they’re
more more thematic
guidance and less rigid -
think shotgun instead of
arrow.
Keyword consolidation
has led to improved data
strength and CPA.
After the Halloween
update, we’ve lost
visibility into ~1/3rd of
clicked queries. We don’t
expect to get them back.
We proactively exclude
terms and categories that
may go rogue.
With the growth/sprawl of
close variants, match
types more effectively
guide how precise or
loose the “keyword”
suggestion should be.
RDA’s have already
replaced static display
ads & Discovery will soon
replace Gmail ads. RSA’s
are set to replace ETA’s
The future will be
responsive only, with the
ability to “pin” features +
values to audience
cohorts.
Still available, but barely.
Success will mean
understanding the ins and
outs of every bid strategy,
knowing what they’re best at
and risks involved.
Tinuiti meets regularly with
Google product teams to
develop our own strategies
for what to implement when.
Relying on “best practices.”
doesn’t work anymore
SEM Traditions To Be Replaced In 2021+
KEYWORDS SEARCH QUERIES STATIC TEXT ADS MANUAL BIDDING
MATCH TYPES
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17. What Does Any of This Have To Do With Bidding?
● Best practices were
segmentation, now
it’s consolidation
● Don’t run match type
+ device + audience
campaigns - It’s not
needed anymore!
● Breakout if need for
budgeting or other
business needs
● 1st party data are
THE FUTURE
● With
cookies/pixels
vanishing, you
must leverage your
own data
● Still writing
individual ads for
every ad group in
your account?
● If so, YOU’RE
DOING IT WRONG.
● Responsive Search
Ads (RSA’s) are the
future
● Leverage your data
for better
performance from
bidding strategies
● Tell the system
what you know -
We promise it will
only help your
performance
● Test, test, and test
again. What works
this month, might
not work next
month
Campaign Structure Audiences Ads Bidding Strategies

18. Advanced Bidding Strategies
and Techniques
Want to Step Up Your Game?
18

19. Face it - The Machines Know More Than You
Time of Day
Audience
Desktop
Location
Search Partner
Search Query
OS
App
Language
Browser
Ad Creative
Combination between
2 or more signals
Signals available to bid modifiers Exclusive Smart Bidding Signals
BID

20. Give The Tools More to Work With!

21. Give The Tools More to Work With!
Email
Signup(0.1x)
Whitepaper
Download
(0.5x)
Completed
Sale
(1x)
Goal Completion!

22. Tag
EVERYTHING!

23. ● Selecting the campaign bidding strategy
(tIS/tCPA/tROAS, etc) based on your objective
for that campaign will provide optimal
performance
● Response Search Ads (RSA’s) are always better
than old-school Expanded Text Ads (ETA’s)
● Changing your autobidding goals by more than
15% will reset the campaign into learning mode
● Data Driven Attribution model is king, better
than Last Click and all others
● Even though you can no longer apply bid
mods, layer in relevant audience segments
● Dynamic Search Ads + Autobidding can be a
godsend
● Learning period isn’t the boogie monster
● Negating exact terms from BMM/Phrase
campaigns may hurt performance
Autobidding Best Practices - The Lesser Known’s + Fakes
Lesser Known Fake
23

24. Have you tested different smart
bidding strategies?
● Nope - set it and forget it for me
● Yes - but it didn't end well
● There’s different bid strategies?
POLL

25. Max Conversion Bidding
Limited on
But want your conversion/sales graphs to look
like this?

26. Limited on
But want your conversion/sales graphs to look
like this?
Max Conversion Bidding Has Entered the Chat

27. ● Max conversions does extremely well for campaigns with
smaller budgets and also campaigns that are brand new.
○ Both of these are great reasons for testing max
conversions.
○ No conversion history is required and in our
experience, max conversions bidding does a great job
generating leads for our clients and helps new
campaigns hit the ground running.
○ Discovery campaigns!
○
●
● In an expensive industry? (think pharma/insurance/legal).
○ We’ve seen max conversions struggle with campaigns
with high CPC’s. With so much competition and high
bids, max conversions can quickly spend its budget or
even worse, not generate any volume because of bids
being higher than your daily budgets.
Max Conversions
Should you use
Max conversions?

28. tCPA is Better Than tROAS - No, Wait! You Need to Test!
● What makes up ROAS?
How do you calculate it?
● What makes up tCPA?
● Our good friend, Math
allows us to calculate out
either or based on recent
account performance.
CPA
ROAS
Spend Leads
Rev. Spend
tCPA/tROAS are Important Too!

29. No, Wait! You Should Totally Test!
● Campaigns contain all the metrics
needed to calculate either metric.
● Analyze your data, check your order
values and determine if you have
outliers
● Lots of cheap orders and few high
value orders (ie: not a good mix) could
be inappropriately skewing your
performance.
○ You’re confusing the algorithm by
telling it to chase a specific ROAS
target if your data is AOV is all
over the place.
Conv
Spend
Rev
What Are We Getting At?
Campaign Metrics

30. ● Budget bid strategies(BBS) are exclusive to SA360.
○ They are essentially a maximize
conversions bid strategy with monthly
budget goal.
○ While there are options for setting bid and
CPA targets, SA360 will STRONGLY
recommend not restricted the strategy. (yes
things may get dicey for a few days)
○
●
● Yet again, the best way to use BBS is to first and
foremost ensure that your campaign structure is
set up as we’ve been discussing - Consolidated,
with segmentation for different themes and
efficiency levels.
○ These strategies work by applying shared
budgets to sets of your campaigns. (think
portfolio style)
Budget Bid Strategies

31. ● The strategy will pace itself throughout the month
(stop spending time on manual budgeting!) and
will “chase” performance.
●
● You can see the various ebbs and flows to the right
for both metrics - This is normal and to be
expected.
○ Using auction-time bidding, the algorithms
will properly bid and enter/pass on auctions
as they see fit.
○ If there exists the potential to capture
conversions, the system will do its thing and
try to get that user to see your ad and
complete your action that you’re optimizing
towards.
Budget Bid Strategies

32. Who Should Use BBS:
● Those with large budgets
● Accounts with goals and budgets broken down
by campaign theme
● Those who are not afraid of volatility to start
● Who want success
● Those who are confident in their tracking tags
(that should be EVERYONE!!!)
● Confident monthly budgets that won’t change
once being set.
Who Should Choose Something Else:
● Basically the opposite of the above. If you do
not have accurate tracking, volatile budgets,
small budgets, BBS will likely struggle to
succeed.
● Those who are not using SA360
Who
Should/Shouldn’t
Use BBS?

33. Schedule Your
Consultation
with a Paid Search
Expert

34. Q&A

35. The Future of
the Web is here.
Find out everything around new restrictions,
cookies, IDFA, first-party data, and all things
privacy from our Tinuiti experts.
Learn More >
tinuiti.com/privacy-forward

36. Thank you!