Shopping for an Effective PPC Bid Management Tool

4. Effective PPC Bid Management, 4.2 PPC Bid Management Tools

There are a lot of Bid Management Tools in the market - and it can be daunting to decide which one to use. I prepared a list of Questions you can ask them in order to gage their fit with your business model:

Engine Functionality

• Does it work with three major Search Engines, Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing (Overture), & MSN AdCenter?
• What is its functionality with Tier 2 Engines

Business Goal Settings

• Does it allow you to set Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) Goals?
• Does it allow you to set Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) Goals?

Bid Management & Optimization

• Does it manage & optimize Keyword Level PPC Bids?
• Does it manage & optimize Match Type Level PPC Bids?
• Is the tool able to manage Time Stamp based analysis & optimize CPC Bids accordingly (Day Parting)?
• Does it allow you to set PPC bids to Position?
• Can PPC bids be viewed in Preview Mode before going live?
• Does the tool forecast account’s performance based on historical data?
• Does it manage & optimize PPC Bids for Content Distribution Campaigns?

Keyword Research & Functionality

• Does it provide functionality for New Keyword List Research & Development?
• Does it provide you with Competitive Landscape?
• Does it identify Poorly performing Keywords and make suggestions?

Creative Testing

• Does it Generate & Suggest New Creative/Ad Copy?
• Does it identify Poorly performing Creative/Ad Copy and make suggestions?
• Does it allow A/B Testing of Ad Copy?
• Does it allow Landing Page Testing?

Data Sharing

• Does it work only with Conversion Counter from Search Engines?
• Or does it also allow advertiser to upload Conversion, & Margin data?

Reporting

• Does it allow you to view Transaction History/Audit Trail?
• Monitor & Store Account change history with Reasons?
• How far back can the reports go? 1 Year? 6 months?

Scalability

• Can it Manage Millions of Keywords per Account?
• What is the Statistical Data threshold to make effective Bid Management decisions? Can it base its decision on ly a handful of conversions, or is it a data intensive tool that requires at least 1-2 months worth of data to start optimizing account?

Data Integrity

• Does it syncs with Search Engine accounts automatically and often - allowing the user to make changes through Search Engine UI as well?
• Does it provide user with an option to roll back changes made by the Bid Management Tool?

Start Up Considerations

• Do you need to change existing URLs or other Tracking features?
• How much time does it take to sync data with Bid Management Tool?
• Would you be using the Bid Management Tool API or your own account’s API? Caution: Lot of Bid Management Companies add cost of API to your billing, so if you do have your own API with the engines, use that instead of paying additional to use the Bid Management Tool’s API
• What is the average time you can expect for the Bid Management Tool to start showing results in?
• Any other business considerations based on your business model

Pricing & Contract Structure

• Do they charge Per Month?
• Or do they charge a percentage of Online Spend?
• What are the Additional API Charges?
• Is it Month to Month?
• Or is it a termed Contract?

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@ July 22, 2008