When it comes to advertising, automatic bidding is an excellent tool that helps market your business effectively, while also managing your paid search ad campaigns. The goal of automated bidding is to help ad campaigns reach their potential through selected keywords at a cost-per-click (CPC) bid.

Although selecting the correct bids are necessary for your company’s success, many lack the complete understanding of how automated bidding truly works. This is due to automated bidding being built on machine learning, computer algorithms that fail to explain predictions it makes. As a result of this, there is a lack of confidence surrounding bid management in times of uncertainty such as COVID-19.

The Effects of COVID-19 on Automated Bidding

The COVID-19 Pandemic has affected automated bidding in a few ways. Since bid management relies heavily on its ability to detect patterns and then uses that information to set bids, with COVID-19 causing everything to go virtual, those patterns were changed.

Is Automated Bidding Reliable?

Fortunately, automated bidding can quickly adapt to change in order to account for the Pandemic but also can revert back to bidding strategies used prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. This allows us to understand how the machine stores and utilizes previous data. As a result, advertisers should have more confidence in automatic bidding during these unknown times.

Should I Pause My Ad Campaign?

As a result of many advertisers temporarily pausing their online ads due to COVID-19, there are new effects on these automated bidding algorithms. It’s imperative that ad campaigns are not paused due to the algorithms being unable to adapt to the new COVID-19 patterns and needing more time to relearn how to help set the bids to help their advertisers. As a result, advertisers should not be pausing their ad campaigns and instead reduce budgets to avoid disrupting the machine’s learning.

Should I Continue to Limit the Exploratory Capabilities of Automated Bidding?

In the days prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, it was typical to limit the exploratory capabilities of Automated Bidding through the use of very specific keywords. This is because the automated bidding algorithms stored and utilized previous data patterns to set bids. Therefore, there wasn’t a need to run exploratory tests that would cost advertisers additional money because they already possessed the necessary data to set bids. But in uncertain times, during the COVID-19 Pandemic, it’s beneficial to use the exploratory capabilities of automated bidding to adjust to the new virtual way of life. Automated bidding can identify new information and utilize that to help set bids that are relevant to what’s happening today.

Automated bidding continues to adjust and quickly adapt to change in order to account for the COVID-19 Pandemic. As a result of this, new information about automated bidding becomes available which is beneficial for search marketers to gain a better understanding of automated bidding and guide advertisers to success.

If you’re looking for ways to boost your paid search efforts, don’t hesitate to reach out to the digital strategists at Kraus Marketing! Contact us today to get started!