Chapter 19. Bid Management Tools

Bid management tools automatically adjust advertisers' bids and positions on Pay-For-Placement (PFP) search engines. A few vendors track Trusted Feed listings as well.

If you invest in a bid management tool, choose one that's authorized to manage the search engines in your marketing plan. (Being an authorized vendor means that the search engines allow the tool direct access to their ad-serving technology, which is required for the tool to work properly.) A good place to start your research is with Overture's list of approved third-party vendors because, more than likely, Overture is in your plan. As of this publication, the following are Overture-approved bid ding tool companies:

• BidRank

• Did-it.com

• Dynamic Keyword Bid Maximizer (Apex Pacific)

• Epic Sky

• GO TOAST

• PPC BidTracker (Trellian)

• PPC Pro (PPC Management)

• Send Traffic

• Sure Hits

As with other return on investment (ROI) tracking solutions, these tools can be purchased as software, or leased as part of a monthly service from an Application Service Provider (ASP). Software is generally less expensive, whereas an ASP model tends to include hands-on assistance with advertisers' campaigns in addition to tool access.

Important

ASPs that are not on a search engine's approved vendor list can still manage client campaigns by using a tool that is authorized. Select marketing agencies may also provide a bid management service to their clients if they've signed a special agreement directly with the search engines.

A couple of bid management companies go beyond adjusting listings based on advertisers' desired positions or bids; their technology operates on advertisers' cost-per-acquisition (CPA) goals. Both Did-it.com and GO TOAST (see Figures 19.1 and 19.2) are making a big splash in the search engine marketing community with their ROI bid management programs.

Figure 19.1. A sample Account Detail Report, which shows revenue data by search engine, for Did-it.com's Maestro service.

Figure 19.2. A sample Rank Analysis report, which shows revenue data by keyword, for GO TOAST's ProfitBuilder ROI Tracking Tool.