Which Bing method do you believe in?

Hi Nattsurfaren,

That's several different questions mixed into a single post. I will try to sort out the questions and respond to each individual question.

In my opinion this is rarely optimal.

Getting more granular in your targeting is a good thing, except when it is not. Taking granularity to an extreme will often bring you less than optimal performance.

In case #1 you cite an example of extreme granularity known as the SKAG (Single Keyword Ad Groups) method. It's based on a solid principle of more granularity allowing for more precise bidding. The only trouble with that idea is if you take it to an extreme it can go way past the point of optimal and actually degrades the performance of your campaigns. The SKAG method is only optimal for relatively high volume keywords, something this a somewhat rare on an ad network like Bing Ads.

Anyone that has done a lot of advertising will quickly realize that you need to find a balance between extreme granularity and the need for sufficient data to make reasonable accurate performance analysis, If you go too extreme on your granularity you cannot gather enough data, on a timely basis, to make reasonable accurate bid adjustments. This is especially true in a low volume search network like we see on the Bing Ads platform. You can achieve higher granularity levels on AdWords, but even that higher volume platform you should seek an optimum balance between granularity and minimal data requirements for performance optimizations.

This sounds like someone that is just making excuses for being lazy. There might be certain rare exceptions where this makes sense, but as general rule sounds a bit foolish to me. I would label this as generally very bad advice.

Case #1 and #2 are both examples of taking an idea to an extreme that is extremely far from optimum.

This is not an advertising method, it seems to be more of a strategy for selecting affiliate offers. Seems a bit off topic, perhaps you should create separate thread in a different forum?

Nonsense, you should always test ad positions and costs. There is no such thing as a one-position-fits-all scenario, performance variables are in a constant state of flux and you should always be testing and retesting these assumptions. This is basic marketing 101, data driven decisions based on testing is always better than following rumor based decisions.

In my opinion, you are both wrong.

There is probably nothing wrong with using a price if it actually gets you more total conversions, but to focus on conversion "rates" is not exactly the same thing.

CTR and conversion rates are just diagnostic metrics. They help you to understand what is happening but neither should be used as a primary objective, because they are diagnostic metrics, they are merely ratios that mean absolutely nothing outside of a true marketing goal.

If you focus exclusively on maximizing CTR you are likely going to attract non buyers that will waste your ad budget. If you take the other extreme, and focus on maximizing conversion rate you will end up with the smallest number of conversions, because you are eliminating all but the most extremely high conversion rate opportunities. Both make really poor marketing objectives.

Your marketing goals ideally should be based on something that represents true value. Ratios are just metrics, they are only useful as a diagnostic metric, not a at all useful as a marketing objective. A better goal might be based on total conversions, or total profit. Forget about ratios except for use as a diagnostic tool only.

Also, don't make the short-sighted mistake of focusing exclusively on lower costs. Managing your campaigns like a cost-center rather than a profit-center is always going to limit your potential for growth. You should only do this in a fully mature market where you already dominate the industry niche. Even then there is incentive to find ways to grow the size of the market. An obsessive focus on lowering cost at the expense of growth is a sure fire way to limit your growth rate.Do this only when the circumstances make sense, like when you have already reached maximum capacity.

The important thing to take away here is that something that is good can be taken to an extreme that is more harmful than helpful. Performance optimization is about finding the optimal balance between 2 extremes. Optimization trumps extremisim, this is true in all aspects of business, especially in marketing.

HTH,

Don Burk

Thanks for the replay dburk.
I want to make responses to your post later on and I'm grateful for the long post you did. There are many things I don't know and I want to do more research so that I can make responses that are constructive and add value for myself and the community.

I'm going through the bing ads accreditation study guide Tony Marriott gave me a link to. I hope it will help me with many of the technical things you described in the post.