If you have experience advertising your products or services for a business where the decision-making process of clients takes several months, you may have experienced this problem. The user may click on the ad one day, fill out a form the following week, and take their time before signing up.
Journey Aware Bidding (JAB) is the new feature of Google that uses early-stage actions to understand the way people move towards becoming customers.
What Is Journey Aware Bidding?
Journey Aware Bidding is a feature that examines conversion actions taken in the initial stages and determines the path to conversion. In many businesses, a customer does not become a paying client immediately after clicking an ad. They visit your website, send a query, schedule a call, and then decide if they want to buy from you.
Traditional bidding works on the principle of taking into account the final conversion. However, JAB considers the intermediate stages too, and it recognizes the connections between actions and future conversions. It makes the decision-making process better.
Why It Matters
1. It Shows Google the whole journey
Most of the customers will not buy from you in one visit. They do their research, compare prices, and take their time. It could be that someone visits your website today, asks a question next week, and finally buys a month from now. With Google knowing how early actions lead to conversions, they have a much better understanding of the buying process.
2. It helps with very long sales cycles
For businesses with sales cycles that last more than 180 days, connecting current advertising efforts to revenue can be difficult. The Journey Aware Bidding takes into account actions as additional signals when placing bids. This helps to use them while awaiting the final purchase decision. Such a solution can be particularly effective if you follow inquiries and consultations before signing a deal.
3. It Makes Early Conversion Signals More Useful
In some cases, advertisers may be unable to determine the worth of conversions instantly. But even though users cannot make the last conversion, they may still perform actions that showcase their intention. These actions could include phone calls, filling out forms, or newsletter sign-ups. JAB helps inform Google’s systems about such actions. From my perspective, this feature could be helpful for businesses that cannot immediately track any sale through inquiries made by users.
4. It Works Automatically with Supported Bidding Strategies
Another thing that I have observed is that the JAB is designed in such a way that it will function right within Google’s bidding system. Advertisers will not have to turn it on and off manually, adjust settings, or run A/B tests.
This way, the system can use journey-based signals while making its bidding decisions.
Where You Can Use It
Journey Aware Bidding can be used for Google Ads Search campaigns with the following bidding options:
- Target CPA (tCPA): To make conversions at the average cost per acquisition set by you.
- Maximize Conversions: To make as many conversions as possible within your budget.
It also supports AI Max and Performance Max (Search). And the other point worth mentioning is that JAB can’t be used with Target ROAS (tROAS) and Maximize Conversion Value.
Who Can Benefit from Journey Aware Bidding?
JAB seems to be very useful for the lead generation business that follows many steps before the customer becomes their client. Businesses like professional services, B2B businesses, and others can benefit from this.
The leads received by these types of businesses may take much time to become actual revenue sources. It would be good to get knowledge about early engagements, which can help Google’s bidding algorithms.
Final Thoughts
The thing I find most interesting about Journey Aware Bidding is the focus on the steps that take place before the final conversion. For businesses that have a long sales cycle, these early steps may prove to be useful signals to observe as they await a customer decision.
JAB is designed to enable Google Ads to utilize these signals when making its bidding decisions. Its effectiveness will depend on the nature of the sales journey and whether campaigns are eligible. It is an update worth keeping track of for advertisers using lead generation and longer sales journeys.
