The Insanity that is Google Ads Auto-Bidding
Let’s imagine for a moment that you are shopping for a home. You find your dream home, it’s in your price range, and it’s going to auction. But not any ordinary auction...
Let’s imagine for a moment that you are shopping for a home. You find your dream home, it’s in your price range, and it’s going to auction. But not any ordinary auction. They’ve implemented a new bidding policy called ‘auto-bidding’, claiming it’s the latest and greatest bidding process in your best interests.
You can see where this is going, right? Your bid starts at $600,000, Sue’s auto-bidding kicks in and goes up to $610,000, which puts Barry’s up to $620,000 and Bruce and Lily’s bid to $630,000. Your bid then goes up to $640,000, and the auto-bidding goes on. Before you know it, a $600,000 house is going for $900,000 because of the manufactured demand. It’s going nowhere but upwards.
So, the critical question is, who’s interest is this in? It’s certainly not in your best interest as the bidder. It is, however, in the best interest of the seller and agent.
Auto-bidding is designed to drive up the price.
This is exactly what has happened with Google Ads over the past 3-5 years. Most Google Ads campaigns are now run on auto-bidding, and all it does is drive up costs and make Google a bucket load of money. It’s not helping businesses get a better return on their marketing dollar, though – and the trouble is most Google Ads experts have embraced it wholeheartedly!
They’ve fallen head over heels for it because it makes their life easy! They believe the marketing hype that this is the best way to manage campaigns – but it’s not. It is, however, the most expensive way to manage campaigns and the best way to maximise Google’s revenue!