top secrets on using excel to change your ppc bids - hanapin marketing

8/17/2019 Top Secrets on Using Excel to Change Your PPC Bids - Hanapin Marketing

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Top Secrets On Using Excel

To Change Your PPC Bids

Written by Jacob Brown

Account Manager


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Top Secrets On Using Excel To Change Your PPC Bids

BIDDING IS IMPORTANT

As a PPC Account Manager, Bid is one of the rst words you associate with your job and also one of

the most important parts. Is paid search simply bidding on keywords and nding the best bid amount

for you to reach your company goals? No. However, it is a large part of your position and you need to

have a nite understanding of bidding processes and strategies.

In this whitepaper, we’ll go through the process of setting up an excel spreadsheet that will help you

manage your bidding strategy and aid in making insightful predictions for your account.

AUTOMATION VS MANUALDifferent companies and advertisers utilize different bidding strategies, but normally you can cat-

egorize your bidding strategies into two buckets: automated bids or manual bids.

Automated Bidding

Marin and Acquisio are just a few systems with bid automation tools. Automation can be extremely

helpful and in some cases, absolutely necessary. Automation allows for bids to be done more often

and streamlines the process, which is particularly helpful in large accounts.

Manual Bidding

Bidding manually can be time consuming, but with inconsistent accounts or smaller accounts, man-

ual bidding might be the correct route to take. Some automation could change bids based off of one

great week on keywords that historically performed poorly. In some cases, manual bidding is better

than automation.

Other Options

Self-Automation (Utilizing Free Form functions), or Excel Formula Bidding.

BIDDING STRATEGY

Utilizing Excel formulas for bidding strategies allows advertisers to utilize automation and manual

bidding together. They help simplify the process, but also allow for manual checking of the bids

before setting them.


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The rst things you should ask yourself is:

• What is your goal?

• How high would you want to raise bids at one time?

Below is an example of how to set up an Excel Bidding sheet with projections on how the bid changes

will impact performance.

Next, set up the formula used

when changing bids. For this

particular account, we utilized theCTR for keywords with lack of performance, but in lower positions in order to give these keywords a

chance. The thought process is that if CTR is high, but spend is low, the keyword may be relevant, but

it needs a bid bump in order to have a chance to perform.

Below are the bid changes we will utilize in this situation:


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How this reads

Starting from the top left corner, if conversions are greater than 0, average position worse than 4,

and CPL at $50 or lower, we will raise the bid 20%.

The sheet above was created to work for multiple accounts with different goals. In order to make

this happen, formulas utilizing the users CPL Goal and Max Bid Change % were put into place to

come up with the numbers you see.

For example, the rst section on the left under

the >0 conversions and >4 Average Position hasa formula throughout the CPL column and Bid

Modier column as seen here without the

equals signs:

In this case, J3 = the CPL Goal you put into place,

and J4 = the Max Bid Modier you put into place.

So, if you change your goal and max bid change %, then these columns will change accordingly, as

seen below:


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Keywords

On the rst tab you then must put in your keyword information:

The above image shows all of the columns you need to carry over onto this sheet. A simple downloadof a keywords list (be sure to lter for keywords with at least one click, as any keyword without a

click will not have any automation in this particular formula) with the columns listed above is all you

need. Make sure the columns line up, copy the list, and paste the values.

This rst tab will be named “CPL Goal & KW Info.” This information may be needed for formulas on

the next tab: “Bid Changes” tab.

Bid Changes Tab

The “Bid Changes” tab is where the action takes place. First thing you should do is title each column

in the 1st row.

Keyword, Campaign, Ad Group, Max CPC, Match Type, Clicks, Impressions, Cost, Leads, and Avg

Position will all be carried over from the previous tab, so these will take up Columns A-J. In Column K

and Column L the CPL and CTR will be calculated.

Column M, N, and O will be Bid Change %, Bid Modier (1+Bid Change %), and the New Max CPC.

Column P, Q, and R will be Cost Projection, Lead Projection, and CPL Projection columns.

To start, utilize the formula below in Cell A2:

=IF(‘CPL Goal & KW Info’!I8=””,””,’CPL Goal & KW Info’!I8)

Drag this formula across to J2, and then all the way down to your last keyword. You are copying the

information from the CPL Goal & KW Info tab to the Bid Changes tab.


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Why not just put this information here at the beginning? We will get to that in a bit.

Next in Cell K2 implement the simple CPL formula of:

=IF(I2=””,””,IF(I2>0,H2/I2,0))

Column I shows conversions, while Column H shows spend. Drag this formula down the entire row.

In Cell L2 implement the simple CTR formula of:

=IF(G2=””,””,F2/G2)

Column G shows impressions, while column F shows clicks. Drag this formula down to the last key-

word.

Bid Change Column

Next is the Bid Change column, which consists of one of the longest “If Statements” you will ever see

in your life. As long as your columns match up with everything that was shown thus far, the formula

in Cell M2 would be as follows:

=IF(AND(I2>0,J2>4,K20,J2>

4,K20,J2>4,K20,J2>4,K20,J2>4,K2>’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$B$11),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!

$C$11,IF(AND(I2>0,J2>4,K2>’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$B$10),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$C$10,IF(AND(

I2>0,J2>4,K2’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$B$8),’CPL Goal & KW Info’

!$C$9,IF(AND(I2>0,J2>2,K20,J2>2,K20,J2>2,K20,J2>2,K20,J2>2,K2>’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$B$21),’CPL

Goal & KW Info’!$C$21,IF(AND(I2>0,J2>2,K2>’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$B$20),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!

$C$20,IF(AND(I2>0,J2>2,K2


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KW Info’!$B$20,K2>’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$B$18),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$C$19,IF(AND(I2>0,

J2’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$B$28),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$C$28,IF(AND(I2>0,J2’C

PL Goal & KW Info’!$B$27),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$C$27,IF(AND(I2>0,J2’CPL Goal & KW

Info’!$B$26),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$C$26,IF(AND(I2>0,J2

’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$E$10),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$G$10,IF(AND(I24,H2>’CPL Goal & KW

Info’!$E$9),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$G$9,IF(AND(I24,H2’CPLGoal & KW Info’!$E$8),”0%”,IF(AND(I22,H25%),’CPL

Goal & KW Info’!$G$15,IF(AND(I22,H23%),’CPL Goal &

KW Info’!$G$16,IF(AND(I22,H25%),’CPL Goal & KW In

fo’!$G$17,IF(AND(I22,H23%),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$G

$18,IF(AND(I22,H2>’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$E$20),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$G$20,IF(AND(I

22,H2>’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$E$19),’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$G$19,IF(AND(I22,H2

’CPL Goal & KW Info’!$E$18),”0%”,IF(AND(I2


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You now have your automated bid changes. You can look through these automated changes and do a

quick check on them manually before implementation.

Bid Changes Tab: Cost Projection Column

Cell P2 will contain the formula:

=((((H2/F2)*O2)/D2))*(F2*N2)

Cell Q2 will contain the formula:

=IF(R2>0,P2/R2,0)

Cell R2 will contain the formula:

=IF(I2>0,((((H2/F2)*O2)/D2)/(I2/F2)),0)

All three of these formulas will be dragged down to your last keyword. This makes projections based

off the new projected cost per click and projected increase in clicks with conversion rates constant.

Projections Tab

The nal tab is a projections tab that should end up looking something like this image below:

Note! When setting up your spreadsheet, ma

sure that your columns and rows include the

formulas and are mapped correctly on both

the frst and second tabs. Any empty cells will

completely throw off calculations in your

projections tab. Example – if you have 2000

keywords, your bid changes tab should also

have 2000 rows.


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As long as you named the second tab “Bid Changes” the formulas in these cells will be as follows:

Implementing Through The Editor

For easy implementation through

the editor moving forward, try

hiding all columns in the Bid

Changes tab, except for Columns

A, B, C, E, and O (Keyword,

Campaign, Ad Group, Match

Type, and New Max CPC).

You can then copy and paste these columns into the editor when selecting “make multiple changes”

within the keyword tab. Just be sure to go into the preview tool before hitting “process”, and that the

New Max CPC column is labeled as Max CPC within the editor, as seen below:

TIME TO DIY (DO IT YOURSELF)

Excel is a beautiful beast that can be used is so many different ways. Now that you have a variety

of formulas and the basic structure, you should be able to create a bidding strategy sheet within

Excel. Not only can you utilize automation, but you still have the advantages of manual bid changes

if needed. And once implemented, you’ll save a lot of precious time and energy in your job. While

the initial set-up is a bit time-consuming, the excel spreadsheet you produce is well worth it!


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hanapinmarketing.comHanapin Marketing is a paid search agency based in Bloomington, Indiana. Founded in 2004, the company

manges & optimizes clients’ paid search programs—increasing sales while simultaneously decreasing budgets.

From ad copy composition to keyword research to landing page optimization, Hanapin’s core objective is to

maximize our clients’ return on investment

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top secrets on using excel to change your ppc bids - hanapin marketing

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