PPC Bidding Strategies Flashcards

What is a first-price auction in programmatic PPC?

Answer: An auction where the highest bidder wins and pays their full bid amount

In a first-price auction, the winning bidder pays exactly what they bid rather than a lower clearing price, which is common in most programmatic display exchanges today.

Which factor does NOT directly influence your Google Ads CPC in a search auction?

Answer: Your advertiser industry category

Actual CPC is determined by the Ad Rank of the next competitor divided by your Quality Score plus one cent — your industry category is not a direct input in the auction formula.

What does 'position-based' attribution model assign in Google Ads?

Answer: 40% credit to the first and last clicks, 20% distributed across middle interactions

The position-based model gives 40% credit to the first-click interaction, 40% to the last-click interaction, and spreads the remaining 20% across all middle touchpoints.

What is the purpose of seasonality adjustments in Google Smart Bidding?

Answer: To inform the algorithm of expected short-term changes in conversion rates for planned events

Seasonality adjustments let advertisers signal to Smart Bidding that conversion rates will temporarily spike or drop during a known event, allowing the algorithm to respond correctly.

How does the Google Ads 'maximize clicks' strategy determine bids?

Answer: It sets bids automatically to get the most clicks possible within your budget

Maximize Clicks is an automated strategy that optimizes bids to generate as many clicks as possible without exceeding the specified daily budget.

What metric should you primarily monitor to evaluate the efficiency of a Target ROAS campaign?

Answer: Conversion value / cost (actual ROAS)

The most direct way to evaluate a Target ROAS campaign is to compare your actual ROAS (total conversion value divided by ad spend) against your target to see if the strategy is meeting its goal.