Joan PorioGoogle Ads defines Maximize Clicks as the simplest way to bid for clicks—you set a budget, and Google Ads does the rest.
But like anything that Google says, don’t trust its definition and let it “do the rest.” There are things you have to consider and ensure before you use this bidding strategy.
So let’s get started and understand the concept behind Maximize clicks bidding and when you should use it.
Content:
What is Maximize Clicks Bidding?
When to Use Maximize Clicks Bidding
When NOT to Use Maximize Clicks Bidding
Major Disadvantage of Using Maximize Clicks Bidding
So, How Do You Make Maximize Clicks Bidding Work?
What is Maximize Clicks Bidding?
Maximize clicks bidding is an automated bidding strategy focused on clicks with CPC bidding. It works by getting the most clicks within your daily budget.
But it’s manual in the sense that there’s no automation built in for a user’s intent to purchase or not.
This bidding strategy learns fast, it doesn’t need a 14-day user activity data before it knows where to place the bid. That makes Maximize clicks bidding a quick-learning and quick-scale strategy.
However, since it uses the cheapest amount of bid possible, it favors cheap traffic at a mediocre placement.
When to Use Maximize Clicks Bidding
Maximize Clicks bidding strategy is typically used on the search network when you have exact match key phrases. It will give you either a good ROAS or a good CPA if you’re getting a high volume on high-intent key phrases.
With Maximize clicks bidding, you need to know you are reaching for the right keyword because Google will only care about volume, not conversions.
When you take into consideration a high-intent keyword, you’re going to reduce the volume.
For example:
The keyword “shoes” has tons of volume, and little intent.
The keyword “buy shoes” has more intent, but less volume.
Using Google Keyword Planner will give us tools and insight, as well as using Google trends or doing Google searches, and seeing different types of searches to build the keyword strategy.
Maximize clicks bidding will also work well for markets with low competition. Since this bidding strategy aims for the cheapest bid to gain a click, it usually targets low placement.
When NOT to Use Maximize Clicks Bidding
Maximize clicks does not work well with broad keywords because broad keywords are best used with a bidding strategy focused on conversions.
If the volume is not high enough, Maximize clicks will not work well because we don’t get to pick and choose who is clicking on our ads with only a few people. Low volume is equal to low supply. When the supply is low, the demand is high—the demand being us and our competitors. And if we’re going to focus on low placement, when there’s a lot of demand and little supply, this isn’t going to work.
Lead generation campaigns generally won’t work with Maximize clicks. It’s because lead generation typically works well with high placement. With Maximize clicks, high placement is only guaranteed when there’s low competition. High-quality leads don’t skip down to the bottom on a low placement lead generation and convert to high-quality leads.
Remember, your auction insights can tell you how many people are fighting for that first spot.
Major Disadvantage of Using Maximize Clicks Bidding
The major disadvantage of using Maximize clicks bidding is it does not care if conversions come in or not. That’s why we need the proper analysis and strategy to force them into good conversions.
So, How Do You Make Maximize Clicks Bidding Work?
To make Maximize clicks bidding work for you, you have to look at your keyword strategy first. If it focuses on good bottom-of-the-funnel, high-intent search key phrases, it could work well, especially if it’s not very competitive. Consider that the bottom-of-the-funnel, long-tail keyword strategies usually have less competition.
If you’re looking at shoes, that’s going to have a high amount of competition, and we’re not going to get to a good placement. It’s going to be way too broad. The automation’s not going to focus on conversions.
If you use long-tail keywords, you will have fewer competitors and less volume. Getting a decent placement could be very lucrative because now, our ROAS will be higher since you’re paying less per click than you can.
We have to build our keyword strategy as if Google isn’t looking at the user’s intent. Also, we could overlay audiences and make a bit of adjustment based on who they are.
For example, Maximize clicks bidding would work great on RLSA because we’re using all the keywords that people have searched; we know that they visited the website, and they proved their intent.
