We manage Google Adwords Accounts for a few dozen active clients, with monthly budgets ranging from $500 / month to $35,000 / month. The way Google Adwords works is on a daily budget basis.

Each campaign has it's own daily budget, which, when exhausted, causes clients ads to stop showing for the day. So if a client has a $50/day budget, and their average cost per click is $5.00, then the campaign typically ends after 10 clicks for the day.

So, as you can imagine, getting the right types of clicks is extremely crucial as to whether or not Google Adwords can even provide a solid return on investment.

We've realized through experience that perhaps the most important strategy, especially for straight up eCommerce websites, is to always ensure first position bidding, and not simply first page or top of page bidding.

First position bidding ensures that your ad for the keyword searched shows at the 1.1 or very top, first position on Google when your campaigns are running.

Not only have we experienced much higher conversion rates when taking this strategy vs. simply bidding on first page, or top of page, but we specifically asked Google Adwords for any data they had to back this up, and they recently told us that actual on-site conversion rates are 37% higher for advertisers who have the first position on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

This means that when you bid say $45 on the first position instead of say $5 on the first page (results 2-10), you are close to 40% more likely to get a sale or a conversion from the user that clicks than you are from the user that clicks on your ad when it shows in positions 2-10.

Now, the difference between first position bidding and first page bidding is not always $40 per click, but in can be, and is typically far more expensive than simply being on page one. Having said that, it's very worth it.

So, recently I've been able to keep clients very happy by showing them more return on ad spend, even though sessions are down. They're down on purpose, and eCommerce rates and Revenue / Transactions have increased accordingly.

Paul Hickey has created and grown businesses via digital strategy and internet marketing for more than 10 years. His sweet spot is using analytics to design and build websites and grow the audience and revenue of businesses via SEO/Blogging, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Social Media Content Marketing and Email Marketing. The part that he’s most passionate about is quantifying next marketing actions based on real data.