What strategies do you use to maintain competitive bids for high-performing keywords?

To maintain competitive bids for high-performing keywords, the goal is to consistently optimize your bidding strategy to ensure you're capturing the most valuable traffic while staying within budget constraints. Here are several strategies to keep your bids competitive for top-performing keywords:

1. Monitor Keyword Performance Regularly
Continuous monitoring of your top-performing keywords allows you to stay on top of their performance and make real-time adjustments to your bids based on any changes in competition, conversion rates, or overall ROI.

Regular Bid Adjustments: Perform daily or weekly checks on your top-performing keywords to see if there's an opportunity to increase bids based on positive performance trends or if a bid needs to be reduced due to external factors (e.g., rising CPC in a competitive market).

Performance Reports: Use performance reports to track the average position, CTR (click-through rate), and conversion rate for each keyword. If a keyword's position drops below your desired level, it may indicate that competitors are bidding more aggressively, and it could be time to increase your bid to maintain visibility.

2. Use Automated Bidding Strategies
Automated bidding strategies can help you maintain competitive bids without needing to constantly adjust them manually. These strategies use machine learning to dynamically adjust bids based on real-time performance and competition.

Common Automated Bidding Strategies:
Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition): This strategy helps you maintain a consistent cost per conversion while adjusting bids for high-performing keywords to optimize for conversions.

Target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): With this strategy, you set a target ROAS, and Bing Ads will adjust bids to maximize revenue while maintaining the return on your ad spend.

Enhanced CPC (Cost-Per-Click): With Enhanced CPC, Bing Ads automatically adjusts your bids up or down in real-time based on the likelihood of a conversion. This is particularly helpful for high-performing keywords to maximize their conversion potential without having to manually adjust the bid each time.

Example: If your high-performing keyword "buy running shoes for marathons" has a proven history of generating high-value sales, Target ROAS bidding can optimize the bid to drive the most profitable clicks, ensuring competitive positioning while maximizing returns.

3. Leverage Competitive Data Insights
Understand your competition's behavior and adjust your bids accordingly. You can use Auction Insights reports from Bing Ads to gather data about your competitors' performance for the same keywords, allowing you to make informed decisions about your bidding strategy.

What to Do with Auction Insights:
Increase Bids for Higher Impression Share: If competitors are bidding higher and you're losing out on valuable impressions, you may need to increase your bids to capture more of the market.

Adjust Bids Based on Competitor Activity: If you notice that competitors are adjusting their bids or increasing their budget, it could indicate a shift in market dynamics. Adjust your bids to maintain your competitive advantage, or consider pausing ads for specific keywords that become too competitive and costly.

Example: If the Auction Insights report shows that competitors are capturing a higher percentage of impressions for the keyword "best running shoes for marathon runners," you might need to raise your bid to regain a higher impression share.

4. Segment High-Performing Keywords for Focused Bid Strategies
Group your high-performing keywords into specific categories or themes, and then apply a tailored bidding strategy for each category. By segmenting these keywords, you can ensure that your bid adjustments are fine-tuned for specific products, services, or audience segments.

Strategies for Keyword Segmentation:
Bid More Aggressively for High-Conversion Keywords: Keywords that consistently result in conversions should have higher bids to ensure you maintain a competitive edge and secure those conversions.

Use Keyword Match Types: Refine your keyword match types for higher control over bid allocation. Use exact match for keywords with high conversion rates to secure relevant traffic without overpaying for broad terms. Use broad match with modifiers to capture more traffic without losing relevance.

Example: If you segment high-performing keywords into categories like "premium running shoes" and "discounted running shoes," you can bid higher for the "premium" category keywords that generate higher ROI and less for the "discounted" category keywords that are more cost-sensitive.

5. Take Advantage of Ad Scheduling and Dayparting
Certain high-performing keywords might perform better at specific times of the day or days of the week. By adjusting your bids for different times, you can ensure your ads appear more often during peak performance periods, making your bids more competitive during the times that matter most.

Increase Bids During Peak Performance Times: If your top-performing keywords convert better during specific times (e.g., evenings or weekends), increase bids during these times to ensure your ads stay competitive.

Reduce Bids During Off-Peak Hours: Conversely, if certain hours or days show lower conversion rates, lower your bids to avoid overspending during these periods.

Example: If "running shoes for marathon runners" consistently performs best during early mornings when runners are most active, adjust your bids to increase during these times, ensuring visibility when demand is higher.

6. Optimize Ad Copy and Landing Pages
For high-performing keywords, ensuring that your ad copy and landing pages are optimized is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge. High-quality ads with strong relevance can boost your Quality Score, which in turn can lower your CPC and increase your ad position.

Ensure Ad Relevance and Engaging Copy: Write compelling and relevant ad copy for each keyword that highlights unique selling points (e.g., discounts, free shipping, premium quality) to improve CTR and conversions.

Optimize Landing Pages: Make sure your landing page provides a seamless experience that matches the user's search intent. A well-optimized landing page improves conversion rates and user experience, helping you stay competitive in auctions.

Improve Quality Score: High Quality Scores often lead to lower CPC and better ad positions. Ensuring your keyword, ad, and landing page are all tightly aligned boosts your chances of securing top spots while keeping costs down.

Example: If your keyword "best marathon running shoes" drives significant conversions, optimize the ad copy to emphasize features like "lightweight," "durable," or "best marathon training shoes" and ensure the landing page is aligned with this messaging for a smooth user experience.

7. Bid Adjustments Based on Device Performance
Performance can vary depending on the device being used (e.g., desktop, mobile, tablet). If your high-performing keywords generate more conversions on a specific device, you can adjust bids to ensure competitive positioning on that device.

Strategies for Device-Specific Adjustments:
Increase Bids on Devices with Higher Conversion Rates: If your high-performing keywords convert better on mobile, you can increase your bids for mobile users to ensure that your ads remain visible during mobile searches.

Decrease Bids for Devices with Lower Conversion Rates: If a particular device (like tablet) is not performing as well for your high-performing keywords, you can reduce bids for that device to avoid wasting budget.

Example: If your "running shoes for marathon runners" convert much better on mobile devices than desktop, increase your mobile bids for that keyword to capture more mobile traffic.

8. Test and Optimize Bid Adjustments
Continuous testing and optimization are key to maintaining competitive bids. Regularly A/B test different bid strategies, bid adjustments, and targeting options to see what works best for your high-performing keywords.

What to Test:
Bid Increase vs. Automated Bidding: Test increasing manual bids for top keywords against automated bidding strategies (like Target CPA or Target ROAS) to see which yields better results.

Match Type Testing: Try testing different match types (exact, phrase, broad) to determine which generates the most relevant and cost-effective traffic for high-performing keywords.

Example: You might test Target CPA for a keyword like "best marathon shoes" to see if it drives more conversions at a lower cost, and compare that with manual bidding to assess which provides a better competitive advantage.

Summary of Strategies to Maintain Competitive Bids:
Regularly monitor keyword performance to adjust bids in real-time.

Use automated bidding strategies like Target CPA or Target ROAS to adjust bids based on keyword performance.

Leverage Auction Insights to understand competitive dynamics and adjust your bids accordingly.

Segment high-performing keywords and apply tailored bidding strategies for each segment.

Utilize ad scheduling and dayparting to adjust bids based on peak performance times.

Optimize ad copy and landing pages to improve Quality Score and reduce CPC.

Adjust bids by device performance to ensure the right bids on the devices that convert best.

Test and optimize different bidding strategies to find the most effective approach.

By combining these strategies, you can maintain competitive bids for high-performing keywords, ensuring they capture top ad positions and continue driving valuable traffic to your campaigns.