As a Premier Google Partner with a managed spend of over $80M that’s been around the block a couple of times, we’ve seen it all. One query we sometimes get from business owners is why we’re not always ranking them in a consistent #1 position on the page.

Why a rank #1 position via Google Ads (AdWords) is not always best

The long and the short of it is because maintaining a rank #1 position (particularly in a competitive niche) generally requires a much higher investment when it comes to CPC (cost per click), driving up the cost of generating business. If you have a limited click budget, bidding too aggressively is likely to also max out your budget, meaning while you might have a higher rank, you might only show half the time, ironically meaning LESS exposure overall. It can be a classic tortoise and hare situation, so we need to be smart about it.

Let’s say you have a $1K daily Google Click Budget. Which would you prefer from your $1K investment?

1. 50 clicks at $20 per click, and ~15 leads at ~$67 per lead?
2. Or 100 clicks at $10 per click and ~30 leads coming in at ~$33 per lead?

In the above hypothetical example, almost every business owner is going to opt for the second option, since cost per lead is HALF and ROI is TWICE as high. What if I told you that would involves us not always maintaining a #1 position, and oftentimes appearing in a #2 or #3 position on the page, or sometimes not at all?

Sure, like any hypothetical, we’ve had to make some pretty reasonable assumptions in the above scenario (for example conversion rate being steady regardless of position, and that search volumes on Google are high enough to utilise the full budget even with a slightly less aggressive ranking strategy). But, with figures like that, most business owners would agree that it’s a no brainer.

Ultimately, we’ll always heavily optimise to generate maximum ROI whatever your nominated Google Ads budget is — striking a good balance between the VOLUME of clicks and enquiries and the EFFICIENCY at which we can generate them

Most businesses don’t have an unlimited budget and can only afford to invest so much to generate a lead or sale while keeping ROI positive. It’s therefore vital that we’re smart about how we optimise the campaign, and that’s what we’re all about.

A big part of us maximising results is our advanced bidding strategies that make use of advanced machine learning algorithms allowing us to bid based on conversion probability

For mature Google Advertising campaigns, when we bid based on conversion probability, we are factoring in what keyword someone is searching for (of the hundreds/thousands of keywords we’re targeting), what type of device they are searching from (device class), time of day, where they are searching from (geo location), RLSA (re-marketing lists for search ads — have they visited your website previously?), affinity and in-market audiences, a person’s interests and so on.

Ultimately, when conversion probability is very high, we’ll bid aggressively aiming for a high rank so we can maximise enquiries and sales. When conversion probability is OK, we’ll bid moderately, and when conversion probability is very low, we often don’t want to appear at all, saving your ad dollars for better qualified clicks. Our conversion focussed approach makes a HUGE difference, helping us to turbo-charge results and deliver more enquiries and sales, and a vastly better overall ROI. So who cares if you’re in first position at rank 1, a rank 2 or a rank 3 if the results and the efficiency is there!?

So what’s the bottom line?

While AdWords rank and page position is important, it isn’t everything. It’s important that we make the most efficient use of your nominated Google advertising budget to drive through as many clicks and enquiries as possible. This is best achieved by us taking an intelligent approach and bidding based on what is going to drive the most clicks and enquiries most efficiently, while factoring in conversion probability. So unless you have an unlimited budget and unlimited cost per lead/sale target, and have little interest in ROI, please don’t expect to always see yourself in a top rank 1 position on every single keyword, all day every day. Rest assured we’ll be proactively monitoring and optimising visibility levels in the background with your best interests in mind and will be working hard to squeeze through as much business as possible, as efficiently as possible.