I picked manual bidding over automated and it paid off

I know everyone in this group swears by automated bidding these days. But I had a campaign for a local plumber in Austin last spring where I just couldn't get the CPA down with their smart bidding. It kept spending on broad keywords that brought in tire kickers. So I switched to manual CPC bidding, set my max bid at $1.50, and spent like 3 hours tweaking negative keywords. After two weeks, my cost per lead dropped from $18 to $9 and we booked 4 actual jobs from it. Maybe it's just me but I think automated tools miss a lot of the local nuance. Has anyone else had better luck going manual for specific service businesses?

3 comments

3 Comments

kimr101mo ago

Tbh it's like how everyone trusts GPS now but sometimes you just know the local shortcuts better.

fox.derek1mo agoTop Commenter

Tbh it's like how everyone trusts GPS now" - man that's exactly the thing though, I think people trust it way too much lol. I've seen GPS take people down dirt roads that are literally impassable in a regular car, or routes that add 20 minutes for no reason. Like yeah sometimes local shortcuts are better, but so many people just blindly follow the lady in the phone instead of using their brain. I get why it's convenient, but it's wild how we've handed over all our navigation instincts to an app that's only as good as its last update. You'd think folks would learn after getting stuck in a dead end or a one-way street the wrong way one time.

andrew_rodriguez1mo ago

Three blocks of GPS data in my city is just wrong, @kimr10.